


Black Heart

by LysSerris



Series: Black Heart [1]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Voldemort Wins, Bellamione Cult Ilvermorny Cup, Blood Magic, Discord: Bellamione Cult, Enemies to Friends to Lovers, Eventual Dark Hermione, F/F, Grey!Hermione, Obsessive!Bellatrix, Pureblood Society (Harry Potter), Sane Bellatrix Black Lestrange, Slow Burn, Soul Bond, Soul Magic, dark au, runic magic
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-08-01
Updated: 2019-11-12
Packaged: 2020-07-28 07:30:17
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 7
Words: 29,743
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20060302
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LysSerris/pseuds/LysSerris
Summary: A year and a half has passed since Voldemort snatched victory from the jaws of defeat, sending the Order scrambling into a half-hearted Resistance.The House of Black, venerable and Ancient, is now in danger of losing all that it holds dear. Bellatrix Black will die before she see's her Family come to ruin, and will stop at nothing to reverse the damage.Unfortunately for Hermione Granger, those plans now involve her.





	1. Ownership

**Author's Note:**

> Oh hey, it's a thing.  
This will be a long fic, the other items in this series will remain as one shots and may or may not be reworked to fit as chapters for this.  
Apologies for any mistakes I missed, hope you enjoy!

Nine months, three weeks, four days. 

That’s all it had taken for each and every one of their plans to go to pot. For the fragility of their meager resistance to be revealed.

Her trip to Knockturn ended up happening two weeks prior to the expected date, the timing moved forward as a necessity when Remus bungled his last bundle of dried Wolfsbane. The man was terribly inept for someone who’d needed the potion for most of his entire life and Hermione couldn’t tell if it was because he’d never needed to brew it himself or that he’d refused to do so. She leaned into it being the second option, the man was more than stubborn enough to dismiss knowing it out of some sort of resentment. In the end the reasoning didn’t matter. His meager skills resulted in three months worth of flowers being destroyed in a single afternoon, leaving Hermione scrambling to make up the difference.

The plant was often known to be finicky and hard to cultivate for even the most experienced of Herbalists. Being that all they had was one half trained student and a mountain of nearly illegible books, the task was nigh on impossible. Their only other option to obtain the plant was to snatch it up where it grew wild, a task that would also prove to be fairly impossible. All of the remaining known patches were guarded by Fenrir’s most experience pack-mates and watched at all hours by the guard dogs. Anyone who was foolish enough to go out looking for the flower were far more likely to end up joining his pack, or in the case of Order and Resistance members, end up dead.

All told, the task of obtaining the necessary ingredient to help Remus keep his wits about him was looking decidedly grim. It was decided that Knockturn Alley was their best bet by far after a loud and protracted shouting match between Harry and the retired Professor. And Hermione ended up being the one to draw the lucky straw.

Not to say that they weren’t all short straws. In theory it could have been anyone. In reality it was always going to be her. If only because she had the least to lose if something went wrong. No family to write back to, no family members coordinating supply networks from outside countries, no pureblood family members working as spies to pull strings and information from inside the WIzengamot. Nor was she the face of a generation, the reluctant hero clamoring to stoke the fires of the masses into fighting for their freedom. She was simply a bright, if resourceful, witch. Always friendly to those around her and living with nothing else to her name.

And so on that fateful night she’d found herself in Knockturn. It was the one place she’d always been told to avoid, now turned into one of the last remaining safe havens for the Resistance to purchase much-needed supplies. The multitude of winding back alley’s and hidden passages had become a balm to the Resistance clandestine activities since the economy of the space almost immediately switched over to service the Light after the Dark Lord had risen. Shops and proprietors of banned materials immediately jumped on the sudden need for smuggled goods. Post-War Britain suddenly needing a way to supply its underbelly in the wake of the regime change, Knockturn had been more than happy to oblige.

She’d been through fifteen shops by the time that two hours had passed, two hundred galleons lighter and a pocket stuffed to bursting with dried plants. It was a lucky night. When she left to head back she followed the known back routes in an effort to reach a side entrance to Muggle London, hoping to be in and out before anyone could recognize her and alert the authorities. 

Luck, however, seemed to have other ideas.

As she wound her way deeper into the underbelly of Diagon the scar on her arm began throbbing and itching in a sure fire sign that something was amiss. Throwing her initial caution to the wind she picked up the pace, long black cloak flapping against her legs and hood battering about as she struggled to keep it securely over her head. A gust of wind blew down off the stormy tops of the buildings to collect and funnel through the alley she wandered, billowing her cloak out and ripping her hood away from her head. Hermione turned around as fast as she could, worried as she was at being recognized by anyone, body halting and feet planting securely. When she thought back on that moment she couldn’t decide it the action had saved her or doomed her.

When her right foot landed onto the ground a bolt of green spellfire jettisoned out from behind an adjacent alley that remained shrouded in darkness, shooting past the space she would have occupied had she kept walking forward. It split through the air to ring out with intense speed before crashing in through a shop window to continue on into a wall. When it finally stopped an explosion blew out the ruptured shop, debris and shrapnel flying from the broken windows.

She threw herself into a turn that dropped her stance and narrowed the target she made, wand dropping into her hand and reflexes ready for a fight. Instead of remaining still she began backing up slowly centimeter by centimeter, nearly covering a meter before the cackling began. It drove a wedge of fear and ice down into her belly while the hairs on the back of her arms and neck began standing to attention. Panic rose up to fill every cell in her body while her mind switched automatically from  _ fight _ to  _ flight. _

She pushed off with her leading food before diving backwards and turning into apparition at the same moment, only to feel a solid wall instead of the sideways tug that should have been there.  _ ‘Anti-Apparition,’ _ she belatedly thought to herself, fear spiking another notch as her lifeline was ripped away.  _ ‘Fuck.’ _

She turned back to face the direction of her attacker, her body backing up slowly as she covered the sides of the alley in quick glances. A thin shadow stepped apart from an alcove provided by a side street, green dress swishing at pale knees and dark hair bouncing as the figure leaned backwards to laugh. No one else stood by her side or behind her, a stroke of luck no matter the remaining circumstances.

With blazing speed Hermione managed to get the next shot off before Bellatrix could continue her initial assault, a green bolt of her own flying forward as fast as she could send it. All the while as she moved the scar on her arm was burning, acerbic and sharp, a tell tale sign that this was the real deal and not a polyjuiced enforcer as had been the case in the past. If she didn’t manage to land these shots then she was in for a world of trouble. With a sound like a door slamming the spell hit home, only to ricochet off with a flick of the woman’s wrist. The rebounding spell smashed down into the cobblestone near their feet before sending up a volley of dust and broken rubble. Hermione could only stand there in astonishment at the quick spellwork the woman wielded.

“Well, well, well. If it isn’t Potter’s icky little Mudpup,” the woman crooned out in infantile mockery, “What a catch for lil’ ol’ Bellatrix. Feisty too! But you’ll need to try harder than that, girlie,” Bellatrix shot forward as a flurry of spells were unleashed from her crooked wand, one right after the other in lightning succession that moved almost faster than Hermione could see. Without any conscious thought Hermione brought up a shield charm that bolted onto her free hand, holding it up and forward as if it was a true shield of old. 

The resounding crack of spell on ward resounded throughout the small space, the numerous collisions numbing the arm Hermione blocked with. Each strike pushed her back slightly, feet skidding along with the momentum of the incoming curses. Bit by bit the dark witch’s spells ground into Hermione’s shield, eroding it and widening the already visible cracks. She knew she couldn’t continue on the defensive like this as Bellatrix’s reserves were large and untapped, while her own were low and shredded with emaciation brought on by months on the run. 

Thinking quickly she twisted slightly to get her wand aimed towards the middle point between the two witches. One, two, three, the red trails of light flew out from her wand to smash against the ground one right after the other until a nearly meter wide hole had been excavated. The buildings on either side of the alley shuddered and rocked when the surface below them weakened to the point of no longer to bear the load. Hermione used the distraction and cover to drop her shield and take off in the opposite direction. She could hear cursing once the dust had risen enough to obscure Bellatrix from her vision, deafened as she was by her own feet skidding out from beneath her as she lunged off to the side and into an open alleyway. Her lungs and throat burned as she inhaled as much air as she could to feed her rampant retreat, her strides lengthening as she fought to make a clean escape.

One final dive to the right ended up landing her in a deserted little alcove barely wide enough for her to walk straight through as bricks on either side began pressing against her shoulders. She stood her ground in silence to hear for any sign of pursuit while her body began to shake with all the exertion of her escape. The past few months of little nutritious food, combined with constant movement as they sought to evade Voldemort’s regime, had combined to wear apart her endurance and health until it was a shade of what it had once been. 

She turned to press her back up against the cold brick wall before slowly sitting down on the dirty cobblestones. She wrapped arms around her knees, wand still in hand and pointing out the way she’d come in, hunkering quietly as she could while she waited out the clock. Five minutes passed before she was able to convince herself that no one was coming after her, another five passed by while she waited for her painfully cramping muscles to come loose. Eventually though, she knew she’d need to leave.

With her still numbed shield arm Hermione pushed herself up and off of the ground until she was in a kneeled position, head peeking down the alleyway as she checked one last time. When nothing strange met her attention she stood and headed further into the darkness, hopeful she’d escaped the boundaries of the anti-apparition wards. If she wasn’t then she’d need to continue on foot until she either found a way to Muggle London or reached a secure portkey. Neither of which were likely to be easy, and so her hopes went with the apparition. Settling her mind and envisioning where she needed to be, Hermione turned in with a rush of magic to apparate back to the safe house.

Rather, that had been her intention. The result was decidedly different.

Instead of ending up in a pub twenty kilometers away, Hermione found herself being yanked sideways before suddenly finding herself thrust onto the ground with a mighty heaving motion that stole her breath and nearly blinded her with nausea. The buildings surrounding her shook as she tried to right her head, body automatically tensing as she tried to determine whether she’d splinched herself.

“Thought you could get away, did you Muddy?” A voice above her started up, sickly sweet and all false innocence. 

_ ‘No, no, no!’ _ The terror returned to bite its way through her doubled vision, stomach changing with a flip from nausea at ruined travel to the striking nausea of fear.

“We cooked it up special for you lot,” the voice spoke again before a body dropped to straddle her waist in imitation of their last meeting. “I’ll have to let Rookwood know that it works,” Bellatrix whispered out against Hermione’s ear, her whole body laying flat atop Hermione as though she could press her way through her.

“Get, off, you bitch!” Hermione pushed with all her might, hips rising and chest heaving as she fought to dislodge the crazed Death Eater. Each movement brought a short staccato of laughter from the witch above her, the short stature of her attacker hiding a hidden strength.

“Tsk, tsk, little miss. That’s some rather rude language, don’t you think?” Bellatrix leaned down to speak directly against the shell of Hermione’s ear, warm breath ghosting her skin and cheek. “Considering how you’re just a lost little Mudpup, I’d think it’s only charitable of me to take you in.”

“Fuck you!” Hermione focused all her movement and energy in an upwards buck, trying again to dislodge the woman. Bellatrix merely rode the movement out before coming back to settle around her waist and clamp strong thighs around Hermione’s torso.

“Sweetie it’s only the second date, I hardly think it’s time for something like that. It’s improper,” Bellatrix punctuated her words with a swift bite against the skin of Hermione’s neck, teeth digging in and a scream of pain erupting from the young witch’s throat.

“Ah!! Get  _ off!!” _

The teeth released their sharp hold on Hermione’s skin, Bellatrix rearing back to swipe at her bloodied lips with long nailed fingers, pink tongue darting out to taste the pain she’d wrought. “Right now wouldn’t be the proper time Pet, much as I’d love to,” sharp fingers reached down to pinch at Hermione’s cheeks, “You  _ are _ quite pretty, even filthy as you are. But I think I should let others know that you’re off limits.”

A flash of crackling black sparks covered the witch’s hand as Bellatrix wove a silencing charm all throughout Hermione’s throat, leaving her wordless as she struggled to escape. A second spark of magic brought a shimmer of black mist to from between her fingers, the space coalescing into a hauntingly familiar knife. One final burst from the witch’s palm had iron chains pressing up out of the ground before heavy metal wound its way around Hermione’s arms and legs until she was pulled taut into a cross pose.

With practiced ease Bellatrix traced the line of Hermione’s right arm with the knife, a mad glint to her eyes and sharp smile on her face.

“You’re  _ mine, _ Pet.”

\---

When Hermione finally awoke, freezing, shivering, bundled up with too many blankets and shoved to the corner of a borrowed living room, she wasn’t quite sure whether she was truly alive. Her mind burst forth into rapid thought and retrospection while her thoughts coalesced and focused on the words of her Grandfather, now long gone. He’d taken a liking to her when she was little, a tiny pip of nothingness, all frizzy hair and too many questions. She wasn’t sure how it had come about but one day she’d asked him about Hell, and how hot he thought it was. He’d taken her aside to sit her tiny form upon his knee, and spoken at great length on his belief that hell wasn’t warm. That it was ice and frozen tundra, a world without movement or light. It had been an odd conversation, what with Hermione being younger than eight and having no truly defined concept of Heaven or Hell, but his words had stuck with her.

And now as she woke up in that room with blankets piled up on top of her, while she shivered and shook from a phantom coldness that spread across her from skin to bone, she couldn’t help but wonder if that was where she was. If Bellatrix had finally finished the job.

Ronald greedily shoving Vienna sausages into his mouth with a greasy hand and lack of table manners brusquely sent those thoughts flying away.

_ ‘I made it.’ _

She remained huddled there in quietude as her body continued rebuilding strength. Her head bobbed from side to side as she took in all the damage and her nerves fought through the mass of pain that had become her right arm.

“‘Mione,” Ronald spoke, obviously sighting her shifting back and forth, “Good ta’ see you’re awake.” His voice was muffled as he spoke around a mouthful of processed meat and his eyes barely glanced over her as he did so. She leaned up from her huddled position until her back was firmly pressed against the wall, covers sliding off of her to pool about her waist.

“How long was I out?” Her voice was scratchy and broken from the result of who knew how many screams, sleep blurring her vision as she looked further around the empty room.

“Eighteen hours. Neville was out for maybe twelve. Should be upstairs somewhere.” Ronald shifted in his seat as he spoke, the tin can of sausages placed gently onto the table in front of him.

“What did she do?”

“Well,” he turned to stare at the ground, long copper hair obscuring his face from Hermione’s vision, “She carved you up real good. Neville swore she was about to kill you when he finally showed up. Not sure how he got away honestly, odds should ‘ave swung the other way.”

“Neville knows what he’s doing. I’ll have to thank him later.”

“And apologize to Kingsley while you’re at it. He’s right pissed you needed rescuing in the first place,” he straightened up on the small couch he had to himself. “It was supposed to be routine, in an’ out. Why didn’t you apparate out first sign that things were amiss?”

“I tried,” she retorted, anger at his question bringing a flush to her chest and cheeks, “I couldn’t. They had the area blocked off with anti-apparition wards. When I got away I tried it again, but she managed to redirect it somehow. I ended up right next to her.”

“How in the bloody blue blazes did she manage that? Apparition can’t be redirected.”

“I don’t know,” her reply was colored by anger, “I didn’t exactly get a chance to exchange notes.”

“No, course not, she just ended up leaving the one on you.”

Whatever anger Hermione had been able to hold onto was ripped right away with his comment, the wind falling straight from her sails. She sighed and leaned back further into the wall before choosing a point across the room to lock her eyes onto.

“What did she write.” Hermione’s voice was quiet as she brought her left hand to the edge of her right sleeve to slowly pull the fabric up and reveal a bandage running from the tip of her wrist to the curve of her shoulder.

“You’ll see it eventually,” Ronald replied, his voice subdued and apologetic, “Don’t dwell on it. We managed to staunch the bleeding. Gin wasn’t sure she could do it at first. Three blood replenishment potions, a full vial of dittany oil. Would have been more but Seamus was making rounds, took over once he saw how bad a shape you were in.”

Hermione turned to look at him with the ghost of a smile on her face, grateful for whatever aid her comrades had been able to render. With a push of effort she stood up from the pile of blankets before stretching out her burning limbs, aches and pains inventoried all around her body. The scars seemed to burn the most, but that was par for the course. Cursed wounds never healed properly and it seemed Hermione’s new one wasn’t going to be an exception. With deft fingers she unlaced the wrappings on her arm, starting at the top and letting it unravel to the ground.

“Hermione, ple-”

“No,” her harsh tone cut him off, “I need to see what she wrote.”

Bit by bit her arm was uncovered as the blood stained bandage gave way to the red gashes of Bellatrix’s knife.

_ PROPERTY OF BELLATRIX _

The words were cut into her flesh with far neater writing than the slur on her other arm. The letters started right below her wrist to continue on in a curve up the inside of her forearm, the final word ending just below the top of her shoulder. The slice marks tingled and burned where the curse continued to reside, a constant hum of pain that she knew would eventually fade into the background.

Bellatrix had staked her claim.

\---

** _Six months later_ **

“Mother!” Bellatrix shouted up the long stairwell in front of her, voice carrying out through the ancient hallways. “Mother, I’m coming up!”

Sharp boots pounded against the wooden stairs to wring out creaks and groans from the weakening wood. The sound practically thundered as she headed up through the tight space. When she reached the landing she breathed deeply and settled her mind, mentally preparing herself to face the old hag. Deep beneath her veins she could feel the incessant thrum of magic coming from the basement, easy to ignore but present nonetheless.

Black Manor was a massive estate that stood nearly twice as large as her younger sister’s Manor. In her flagging years Druella Black née Rosier had chosen the topmost floor for herself. The space was dank and disused in the best of times but with only two elves remaining and the ancient woman far from her glory days, the space had only gotten worse. Druella was unlikely to care though, not with cancer rotting her guts and the darkness downstairs pulling at her fraying mind.

With a press of her hand Bellatrix pushed open the doorway leading towards the parlor kept on this floor, ancient carpeting bunching beneath the door to jam her entrance. With a shove she opened the space up and let light fall from the hallway into the interior. It was dark as always, one fire only embers and the other out, all the remaining thin light of the room provided by two single sconces. The air was heavy with the sweet smell of rot and molded books, a consequence of the rooms on this floor being far more humid than the rest of the Manor. All around her were the last vestiges of her mother’s sanity; old books, clothing, paintings and portraits she adored, a long table filled to bursting with silver knickknacks that she’d picked up on her honeymoon. 

The mantle above the lit fireplace was filled from end to end with pictures of Bellatrix and her sisters, some older, some younger. All had been taken before Andromeda was disowned. With practiced steps Bellatrix approached the familial shrine as the ghost of a smile crossed her face. With a slight frown she set each picture with Andy face down upon the marble, unwilling and unable to deal with the looping visage of her wayward sister.

“Mother, where are you?”

_ Pop! _

Bellatrix startled at the sound of an apparating house elf, the little creature hopping from foot to foot in a ruined bed sheet.

“Mistress Bellatrix, the- the Lady Black is in the Library,” it said as it moved forward, almost touching her. Bellatrix deftly sidestepped the ancient looking elf to let it’s wrinkled hand grasp at empty air.

“Which library? Her personal one or the one downstairs? And why did neither of you greet me at the door,” her voice deepened into a growl, “You know the rules Tinker.”

“Tinker is so sorry Mistress Bellatrix, b-b-but Tinker is, TInker was,” the elf bowed down to scrape its head against the floor while its voice turned to a mush of emotion and tears, “The Lady Black was pained and requested solitude, Tinker and Lopsy were made to wait outside, the Lady Black has barred entrance and will not respond!”

That peaked Bellatrix’s interest in a rather morbid manner. That the woman had enough sense left to hide herself away was rather unusual. For the most part her flagging years had been characterized by a reluctance to leave her own mind, the call of Blood and darkened memories too great for her to escape.

“Show me.”

She followed the diminutive elf out of a second set of doors to emerge into a small and narrow hallway. Three doors lined either side, each heading into a room claimed by her mother. At the farthest end of the hallway stood the other remaining elf pounding harshly against the door with its undersized fists.

“M-Mistress Bellatrix, the Lady Black will not answer,” the elf called out when it caught sight of her, “She refuses to let us in!” Its frail body began shaking with fear at the sight of Bellatrix’s darkened eyes, backing up until it was standing flat to wall. Bellatrix could hardly stand the pitiable sight.

“Out of my way you simpleton,” she pushed it aside as she passed, squaring her stance before banging against the doorframe with a closed fist. “Mother!?”  _ Bang-Bang! _ “Mother open this door immediately!”  _ Bang-Bang! _

When no noise reached her ears Bellatrix stood back from the door, her hand clenching and magic crackling off her skin in a shower of red sparks. With a burst of speed she threw her clenched fist at the door, right above the handle, using the dual strength of her magic and momentum to smash the old wood into splinters and dust. Freed from its lock the door swung inward, Bellatrix pushing past it as she entered the room.

It wasn’t nearly as large a space as the library on the first floor but it held far more valuable tomes. Each were priceless in their own right, grimoires and binds of banned literature and notes, old and rare beyond belief. Two corridors laid out in green carpeting split off from the entrance to run along the sides while the walls and center aisle were all filled bookcases with nary a spot to spare. Bellatrix strode forward into the space on the right, heading towards where the lanes converged onto a small sitting area with armchairs and desks.

When she reached the end she stopped in her tracks. She didn’t need magic to understand the sight presented before her. Druella was sitting up in an armchair with a photo album propped precariously upon her lap, blonde hair tied up in a loose bun that draped to the nape of her neck. She was thin and gaunt, her cheekbones harshly poking through the paper thin skin, her eyes closed and visage peaceful in death.

“Fuck.” Bellatrix wiped a hand down her face, cursing her luck to the empty air. Deep beneath her skin she could feel a darkness swelling as the last bits of Black magic passed from dead mother to daughter. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Like Bellamione? https://discord.gg/pcfMU4F come on in and join the server!


	2. These Heavy Bones

Bellatrix burst forth into her sisters home with a flash of green flame and smoke that billowed out to follow her strides. The entrance she found herself in was one of many inside the massive estate, and like the rest it was rigged to alert the occupants the moment that the Floo had been activated. She would have awaited a welcoming party but with Narcissa avoiding her at each and every opportunity, all that was left for her to do was to seek her younger sibling out. 

So she did.

Her brisk pace threw her curls behind her shoulder and set the halls echoing out with the clatter of her heels on marble flooring. All around her the home looked just as beautiful as ever, elves and servants constantly on hand day and night to provide for the care, and it sickened her all the same. It was just so… sterile. Like no one even lived there. She preferred the dark and dank expanse of her own home far more than her sisters’, but to each their own. If Cissy was comfortable being paraded about by the Peacock, so be it.

Her head swung around to the Order of Merlin, First Class, pinned to the wall of a study that she passed by, Draco’s Golden Achievement for service to their Lord. Unfortunately she’d been unable to see much of her nephew as of late; the boy was off in France cavorting with associates and working towards some medical bill or other such nonsense. It still amused her to this day that as soon as Victory for their Lord had been declared, Draco had run off to become a Healer. Not to say she didn’t respect it, Healers were needed as much as fighters in a war, but it was… unexpected. When he’d finally told her of his chosen profession she’d been so stunned that her mouth dropped open and an eye had begun twitching. Draco, seeing her so out of sorts, had immediately dived for cover from what he assumed to be the worst reaction. Of course her reaction had been nothing of the sort. She loved the little bastard enough that it felt like he was her own child.

_ Crack! _

The sound of Elf apparition startled her from her silent reverie. The little creature was no higher than her knees, bent over in to grovel and bedecked in a golden pillowcase that it had liberated from who knew where. With a startled noise it gave chase after her once it realized she wasn’t planning on slowing down to even give it the time of day, short legs rapidly pounding against the floor as it fought to keep up.

“Lady Black, the Madame Malfoy is not accepting visitors-”

The thought that creature had dared speak to her unprompted, _ Her!, _ was enough to make her toes curls and throat constrict with bile. Bellatrix released a heavy grunt before shoving the little creature out of her way with a sideways kick aimed to send it toppling end over end until finally it sank to the floor and remained unmoving.

Minutes slowly stretched onward as she passed through room after room in her search for Narcissa. A locating charm _ would _ have done the trick, but her sister had been crafty enough to ward for them. For the moment, she was walking blind. But of course that was already the case even before she entered the Manor. Narcissa had avoided three owls, two Floo calls, and now she was _ refusing _ visitors. It was beyond insane and either her sister knew why she had sought her out, or the woman had finally gone insane.

Bellatrix placed those odds at four to one.

Eventually the lingering feeling of her sister’s magic grew enough that she knew she was going in the right direction. A pair of double doors stood before her, tall and majestic with decorations of the Malfoy coat of arms and Lucius’ favorite bird. She shook her head at the gaudy look before throwing the doors open with nary a wave of her finger, stomping in towards the back wall made entirely of glass.

“Cissy! Cissy what’s the bloody meaning of all this?” Her voice had risen enough to make even her own ears hurt, ringing out to echo about the small room. Narcissa remained seated on an old armchair with her feet put up on an ottoman and wand in hand. “How dare you refuse to hear me, or reply? I’ve urgent-”

Narcissa managed to stop her tirade in its tracks with an upraised palm and a deadly look flashing through her icy blue eyes. All around Bellatrix’s feet thin strands of black and yellow wove themselves into existence before her eyes. Each strand was thin, no wider than a hair, but the length of each was enormous as the magicked fabric wove itself in and around the room like a grid.

“Come no nearer,” Narcissa’s voice was cool and calm, “I’m not even halfway through this damnable threading and if you cause me to miss even a single stitch I’ll have your head on a platter.” Her eyes meant business, the set of her jaw said not to mess with her, and Bellatrix was momentarily too stunned to do anything but stare.

Only momentarily.

“The _ fuck _ you will,” she erupted with a tinge of anger, her body stepping forward hastily to close the gap with her sister. Heeled feet carefully wedged themselves into awkward positions as she moved about the room, avoiding each thread and placing herself in the few open spaces without even a glance. “Mother is dead. You’ve yet to respond to a single fucking owl, or a Floo call for that matter,” Narcissa looked down into her lap of thread, head shaking side to side as she murmured under her breath, “And when I come to visit you in person your elf says you’re not seeing anyone! You will fucking deal with me if it’s the last thing you ever do.”

“If it’s the last thing I do, then I doubt I’ll ever be able to help you with whatever it is you need.” Narcissa’s wand went back to tugging on strings, loosening bits and threading others as the magic spooled out to cover more open ground. 

“The hell are you even weaving? What ludicrous ward do you need in this room of all places?”

Bellatrix wasn’t afraid to admit she didn’t know everything. She knew a lot about a great many things, but there were some things even she was ignorant of. Her proficiencies landed her more towards Offense, Defense, obscure curses and deadly hexes. Severus might have been the King of inventing new Dark spells, but she was the Queen of Proficiency when it came to actually using them. But when it came to Wards? Rituals, or House Magics? Well, her education was far, far from complete.

Narcissa had chosen _ those _ topics instead. She’d readily given up on learning bulk spell work and focused herself instead on becoming a Healer and Rune Master. Or Mistress, in this case. All this to say that it made it all the more difficult for Bellatrix to keep her cool when the blonde woman before her glanced back down in her hands and _ sniggered. _

“Gods dammit Cissy, just let me in on it already.”

“Well,” Narcissa chuckled in a musical tone, “If you must know, this is a Funerary Ward. Once Druella is buried I’m going to seal the chamber. By all rights it should have been _ Her _ doing this, but I suppose I can make do.”

“Oh, a Funerary Ward, she says. Well that’s all well and good but what the hell were you planning on doing with ** _It_ **? I need a Balance and you’ve been refusing to see me for days!”

“I wasn’t planning on doing anything about it at all, dear sister. If you want a Balance so much, go ahead and get yourself another Husband. Surely you can find someone to convince to take your name. Bear him a child and it’ll take you a total of what, a year? Two at tops? You can survive until the-”

“I cannot!” Bellatrix stepped closer to Narcissa’s chosen armchair with a maniacal glint in her eyes and sparks arcing off the exposed tips of her fingers, “I refuse to marry again, one friend-turned-lout was more than enough for me, and I’ll be dead anyways, long before two years are up!”

That seemed to finally pull the wind out of her sister’s sails. The blonde witch looked up at her with blue eyes muddled in confusion as her wand finally stilled in her lap and her mouth dropped to hang open slightly.

“What do you mean you’ll be dead before then? The Lodestone has been suppressed for years. SInce we were children-”

Bellatrix hopped off her feet to drop down into the small settee on Narcissa’s side, skirt billowing and hair bouncing as she moved.

“It would appear that in her dementia addled wisdom, Mother unlocked it. It must have been some time ago, I’m not sure when. I didn’t notice it at all until she finally passed. I just chalked it up to the unspent Magic accumulating.” Her head fell down into her palms, voice hushed and back bent. “Since Siri is dead and Andy,” Narcissa winced when she said the name, “is still locked out, Mother and I were all that remained. I’ve no doubt that it being unlocked is what spurred her decline. Now I’m the Anchor and I’ve no Balance. I’ll be dead within six months if I don’t correct it immediately.”

“So you need something quicker than a marriage and a child.”

“Yes,” Bellatrix leaned back into the settee while a sigh escaped her lips.

Narcissa remained quiet, pensive even, her fingers steepling in her lap and thread disappearing from view all around them. Seconds passed into minutes before she spoke again.

“I might be able to help.”

\---

Hermione’s head had been burning with the intensity of her hangover ever since she first startled awake at one in the morning. Every beat of her pulse, every jostling movement, worked to shoot a needle of pain into the gray matter behind her right orbital, while also making her scarred arms pulse with heat and tingle with pain. Firewhiskey might have made sleeping easier, but Gods was the hangover a bitch.

_ ‘Never again,’ _ she vowed to herself, knowing somewhere deep in the back of her mind that she’d be ready to do it all again by the next night. It was a vow she’d made and broken many times over by this point.

Falling down a bottle hadn’t been one of her major life goals, but then again neither was taking part in an Insurrection against an egotistical madman with immortality. But, alas, here she was. 

Specifically, here she was in a shitty hotel in London while she waited for word from her contact. The last few months after her marking had been hellish on the remnants of the Order. So much so that the organization had eventually splintered into a fractured web of resistance fighters working on multiple fronts to no overall great effect. Their methods were slowly but surely turning towards spite and devastation instead of the noble acts of freedom fighting that they’d all pledged themselves to.

Freedom fighting. She still had no idea exactly what that meant in their new world, and she was more than ready to be done with it all. By the time they’d formed from an organization built to prevent a Dark Lord from rising, they’d fallen to instead tear down said Dark Lord. Their morals and methods had been dropped along the way, not that anyone sober would even dare talk about it. 

No, those thoughts and conversations were better served for later; when she was so deep into a bottle that she couldn’t see straight, talking Harry’s ear off with thoughts on Magical theory and criticisms of their current leadership.

Those were all thoughts for later, and she had a contact to meet.

\---

Hermione stepped lightly on the harsh wooden floor of the tavern, her purse swinging harshly on her hip as she wandered between tables. She took a seat towards the back of the grimy establishment and ordered a glass of water. Her hungover stomach still wasn’t ready for anything more tepid than the tap, and the Polyjuice potion she’d imbibed wasn’t helping the situation.

Her contact for the meeting was a member of the Ministry’s newly expanded Hit Wizards division, the significantly larger organization had flourished with Voldemort's climb to power until it had eventually outshone and absorbed the Auror department entirely. He was supposed to drop off papers relating to the reprisal killings that had recently been conducted against a group of Halfblood business owners who’d stood their ground against Voldemort during the first month of his reign.

None of the owners had taken kindly to suddenly finding themselves banned and restricted from selling the things that had once been their stores lifeblood; muggle inspired potions and remedies that had developed by taking knowledge of Muggle technology and applying it to Wizarding needs. With the Big Bad in power, they’d all suddenly found themselves banned from obtaining what had once been common ingredients created or synthesized by Muggles. With no working knowledge on how to produce what they needed for themselves, each had seen their livelihoods taken away. In retaliation the group had taken to picketing, staging fights within the Ministry, and withholding goods and services in retribution. 

When a Pureblood snob had taken umbrage to the suddenly increased price of lacewing extract, he’d responded by burning a shop down. His bright idea caught, consuming three other surrounding buildings before the blaze was finally put to rest. Twelve people had died, all Muggleborn or Halfblood, and the shopkeepers and aggrieved families had immediately petitioned to the Ministry for recompense. That recompense was never meted out however, leaving them stewing and fired up for blood. In the end they’d wrung their price out in the screams of the arsonist’s family before getting off on the charges due to a technicality that laid the blame at a scapegoat's feet.

Now, like clockwork, those that had gotten off scot-free, or their families, were suddenly finding themselves dead or broken to the point that they wished for it.

Her contact was supposed to deliver information relevant to unmasking the culprits behind these killings, listing them in plain sight so that Resistance members could take them down. It would be claimed as Heroic, something to give the common folks a reason to root for them.

Hermione just wanted the senseless killings to stop. Young children should have been attending school. Now they were ending up splattered against walls.

Not her cup of tea.

\---

Well, that was how her afternoon was supposed to shake out. Instead of seeing her contact stride through the front door, she watched as in came the single most infamous Wizard in Britain.

Harry Potter, Undesirable Number One.

Not as himself of course. Hermione had managed to beat it into his head enough times that _ any _ time he needed to be outside of a building, he _ had _to be using Polyjuice. They’d suffered too many close calls and near misses to faff about in regard to their safety. At the beginning of their Resistance it had been easy to get by in the confusion, but now that Voldemort was entrenched they’d have a far harder time of it. 

Harry was dressed down in the skin of a Muggle who’d been selling newspapers on a street corner near their hotel; tall and muscle-bound with a head of salt and pepper hair that went nicely with his aged lines of worry and stress that had embedded themselves on his face. Hermione’s disguise was a nurse at a local veterinarian clinic with pale yellow hair and a figure that no one would remember seeing. She paired well enough with him that no one would remember the couple if they wandered into a shop, stopped for a bite to eat, or shopped around Diagon Alley.

No one was supposed to recognize them.

Or they shouldn’t have, anyways. But his entrance meant her mission was a bust; someone had squealed or intercepted word of their identities or the reason they were there in the first place. When he passed by her table he gave her the slightest tilt of his head, a predetermined movement to alert her to follow him. She waited for a second or two until his footsteps had ceased before getting up from her chair and leaving a Muggle cellphone on the table. When she arrived in the hallway leading to the loo, Harry was waiting for her with a grim expression on his face and fear evident in his borrowed eyes.

She could feel a crackle of energy and Magic pass over her skin as he used the spell she’d taught him to check if the person beneath her mask was the right one or not. As soon as it passed over her she did the same to him, sweeping across his body to reveal the silhouette of the man within.

With their identities secured Harry reached into his pocket to pull out a battered looking bottle cap, presenting one half for Hermione to grab onto.

_ ‘Gods dammit.’ _

Harry gave her one last glance in the eyes before booming out, “Lunchroom!”

Energy raced across her hand as they began shooting off along the path of the unregistered portkey, their bodies flying outwards as it weaved them through the in-between. She landed on the ground with a resounding smack that brought her stomach up her throat and send an icepick deep into her brain. Hermione took a few seconds to pull her bearings back together before disentangling from Harry’s long limbs and standing to her feet.

“What happened,” she dug into her purse for a small green vial and took a sip once she’d found it, passing it off to Harry when she was finished. It was one of her make-do-discoveries, a quick and simple potion with no lasting aftereffects that would quickly and seamlessly dissolve the effects that Polyjuice had on their bodies. As her height dropped down a few inches and the clothes on her back fell down on her shoulders she eyed him with displeasure and waited.

And waited.

“Earth to Harry?”

“Sorry ‘Mione-”

Her eyes narrowed as she interrupted him, “Don’t call me that.”

“Sorry, right, right. Yeah. So…” He shuffled where he stood, “Kingsley’s dead.”

Hermione could just about feel her heartbeat still in her chest as the words came out of his mouth. She assumed right off that she must have misheard him, misunderstood his two simple words. “Come again?”

“Kingsley’s dead. The operation was a bust. He’s been dead for weeks according to Ron.”

“How the hell does he know that? He can hardly be trusted to make do with his shoes, let alone tell how long someone’s been dead. How the hell didn’t we know? Hells, I’m pretty sure I’ve been conversing with someone claiming to be him. How’re we sure the information is right?”

She took in a deep breath of air before stepping backwards from their appearance point, suddenly not comfortable standing with Harry or looking him in the eye. Beyond it being absolutely mind-boggling that the man was really dead, she couldn’t help but try and ignore the sudden lack of emotion she felt towards his passing. He’d taken over for the Light after the ‘Final Battle’, making himself into the head of the remnants of the Order. Sure, he’d been a great leader who’d willingly taken the reins and a former Auror to boot, but months and years on the run hadn’t done him any good in her opinion. He’d not exactly been egotistical, certainly not so much as Dumble-Here’s-Clues-Figure-It-Out-Dore, but enough to brush up against anyone and everyone if they had an idea or an opinion different from his own.

“Well then,” she turned back towards Harry, “What happened?”


	3. A Splintered Path

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Minimal editing, errors to be corrected at a later date.

“When you said that you’d be helping me with this, I was picturing something completely different, sister dear.”

Narcissa’s movements paused for just a moment as she turned around to give Bellatrix a confused and glassy look. Only a brief second passed before she turned back to the task at hand and resumed passing her yet another in the series of large tomes that still mostly filled out the shelf. With more force than was necessary she pressed the book against her sister’s chest, “Like what?”

“Oh,” Bellatrix looked up and around to avoid looking at her sister’s cutting eyes, “I don’t know. Maybe like divorcing dear Luci and retaking your name. Problem solved, simple as that.”

“You know I can’t do that, and you also know you should be referring to him by his proper title.”

“Ah yes,” Bellatrix’s rolled her eyes as dramatically as she could, “The well esteemed Lord Malfoy, Regent of the Peacock.”

“Should I cease my assistance then? If you’re just going to insult my Lord husband all day?” Narcissa’s hand stilled above the tome she was about to pull off the shelf, her blue eyes glittering dangerously and mouth set into a thin, straight line.

Bellatrix was caught with her mouth open in confusion, mind not working at her sister’s serious expression. It took a second or two for her brain to catch up, and when it finally did she felt the tiniest sliver of ice creep up her back.

“You wouldn’t let your only sister left die because of a petty name, would you?” Bellatrix tried to keep the infantilizing tone she so often fell into away from her voice as she spoke, knowing Narcissa hated it beyond belief.

Her sister remained unmoved, eyes still locked onto her as she stared with an unrelentingly impassive expression.

“Oh bloody hell, fine then,  _ Lady _ Malfoy; I hereby do rescind my earlier comments where they pertained to the  _ Lord _ Malfoy. Happy?”

Narcissa’s hands resumed their work as if she’d never even paused, “Quite. Now then, there are at least a few rituals we know we can’t use,” she dropped the next tome into Bellatrix’s waiting arms, “Adoption, even a proper Blood Adoption, won’t cut it. They just end up spliced into the line and never a true part of the Tree. Not to  _ it _ , at least.”

When it became clear that Narcissa was finished pulling tomes out from the shelf, Bellatrix stepped backwards to unload the weight onto the proud ivory coffee table that stood wedged between the aisle and an overstuffed, white cushioned couch. She turned back towards her sister as she sank down into the comforting softness of her seat, “So what’re we looking out for then? Any particulars?”

“Anything that actually  _ transfers  _ Blood, and House.”

“So your answer is to what, make it Sing for someone else? How the hells will that even work? Better yet, why would that work and not blood adoption,” Bellatrix leaned back into the couch and set her heeled feet atop the table, “It can’t be that picky, can it?”

Narcissa ignored her question in favor of sinking down into a large armchair of cream white and glistening silver with as much grace and poise as a proper woman of her rank should have. From there, she proceeded to read.

And read.

And read, until every last shred of Bellatrix’s patience had worn thin enough to twist and tear. They’d both made it through the whole of the stack, Bellatrix one half and Narcissa the other, and arrived at the same conclusion. They had  _ one _ ritual that could conceivably work. It was a Norse creation, found and absorbed into the Malfoy grimoires by the hands of lady Thomasin Malfoy; a third generation immigrant to England and the first in the family who intended to marry outside of it. 

Thomasin had been strict in her adherence to the Ancient Rites that their family had upheld, and marrying outside of the family would have cost them dearly in favor to the other purebloods of the era. In service to that, she’d explored all along the continent for a manner of blood adoption that would satisfy her familial demands. And in the end she’d found it, deep and hidden away by a sect of Norsemen in a wintry land no longer in existence. She’d described the ritual, noted everything necessary, every word to be uttered, and left it inside a grimoire for her descendants to find.

And find it they had. It was all there, every word and every description, all that they would need to begin and finish the ritual.

Except one thing.

“Who are you planning on using?” Narcissa levitated the remainder of the tomes back to their home on the shelves while she waited on her sister’s reply. It had been a lucky stroke that they’d managed to find what they were looking for amid the first library, searching for tomes in the others would have meant the involvement of family she’d rather leave buried.

“I’ve a choice in mind,” Bellatrix growled out to her sister from behind a veil of black curls, “One, maybe two…”

“Aurel Greengrass, or maybe Marcus Nott? They’re both from respectable, if a little shallow, Houses. You could do well-”

“Number Two.”

Narcissa turned to stare at her sister after the interruption, unsure and confused by the two words, “Pardon?”

“Undesirable Number Two.” Bellatrix flashed her sister an all too sharp smile.

“... Are you bloody fucking serious?”

“Of course not sister, he’s been dead for years. But to the actual point, she’d be perfect. She’s already marked as mine, by the by, it’d just be a final act of claimant.”

“You would debase our-”

“ _ My _ House, sister dear.” Bellatrix’s dark eyes closed to near slits, her voice trembling with the barest hint of anger at her sister’s sudden tone, “And yes. I’m completely serious. Imagine it, the House of Black helmed by not one, but two, ‘Greatest Witches of their Age’, both bound together under one Blood.”

“...” Narcissa kept her lips in a tight line as she worked her mind away from the frenzy it had begun to enter. “Fine, but you’re catching her on your own time. I’ll help you set up for the ritual but finding her and inducting her will be  _ your _ responsibility.”

“Of course.”

\---

The exceedingly small village of Asaph was a literal ghost town.

Hermione’s steps rang out loud and clear against the abject nothingness that filled the humid air. All around her were empty homes and shuttered businesses, the streets very slowly beginning to give way to nature’s return. The main street she was traveling on was just about wide enough to admit a car, the wood and brick structures not even an arms' length away from the faintly painted edges of the street. Harry was silently marching along beside her with his ears tuned towards their safety. They moved at a snail's pace in an effort to keep watch for errant snatchers or wolves, possibly even a Hit Wizard or two.

Their luck continued to hold out the further into the village they went, no one besides themselves to be seen or heard. The street below them started giving up the ghost about half a kilometer from the edge of the village as water accumulated until the center road turned into a middling pond. All along the outskirts of Britain and Scotland the view was the same. Townships and villages inhabited exclusively by Muggles were emptying or vanishing overnight, often with little to no news coverage of the disappearances.

Voldemort’s reign had begun to push and tear at the boundaries of the Muggle realm, held only barely in check by the harsh words and diplomatic threats of Continental Europe and the Americas. Both centers of power knew how badly things could swing if the War and its resultant regime change became widespread public knowledge to the Muggles, and there was still as of yet no consensus on whether magic would be received with kindness and thanks, or pitchforks and torches. Hermione was leaning towards the latter rather than the former, but those thoughts were best kept to herself. Hells, her entire worldview was best kept to herself, especially now that Kingsley was dead and ash.

“What now?” She tossed Harry a long-suffering look filled with irritation and genuine confusion. “Do we have any plan of action at all?”

Harry trudged through a puddle and up to the sidewalk that hadn’t been submerged yet, “We keep on moving and hope that a Patronus finds us sooner rather than later.”

“What if they don’t? What if whoever ends up in charge just forgets about us.”

“Hermione our faces are plastered all about Diagon and Knockturn, not to mention any Wizarding villages from the Channel to the sea. No one will forget about us.”

“You know what I mean,” she shoved his shoulder lightly, “Whoever steps up to his seat will either be an incompetent that’s only there to fill the power vacuum or someone actually dedicated to the ideals of this resistance. What happens if we fall through the cracks? Who knows how many people ended up compromised, or who’s out there actively turning to the oth-”

“Hermione,” Harry leaned over to still her movement and place his hands securely on her shoulders, “We’ll be alright, okay? We camp out a bit, we wait, and then we find our heads round right. Relax.”

“Hard to relax while we’re wandering about a graveyard.”

As if to punctuate her statement the wind around them howled its way through the buildings and empty roads, bringing with it the first signs of rain and wet. With barely a glance at one another they set off towards a more secluded portion of the village. Eventually they found themselves in an area filled with trees, littered by acorns, and guarded a granite fountain that had long ago become dry and lifeless with no one to provide for its maintenance.

The home they decided upon wasn’t large by any means, but it wasn’t what she would call small either. A landing that wrapped around the front and sides appeared to only be accessible by a short flight of stairs, each edge fenced in by wrought iron and solid locks. The wooden floor was littered with little tables and chairs for sunny days of yesteryear, a row of potted plants along the back end dried and brittle from continued neglect. 

A quick Alohomora made short work of the large padlock holding the gates shut, and it wasn’t the work of a minute more to open the front door to the small home. Harry took point as the door swung inwards on silent hinges, his body twisting up against the wall with Hermione right behind. Before stepping through the threshold she set up a few nearly undetectable wards that would alert her by vibration if someone was attempting to gain entrance, and then turned to follow Harry’s swiftly moving form.

The air inside the home was stale and dead, and a layer of dust had settled out over every surface due to the last dying gasps of the central air unit before the electricity had gone out for good. A battery powered clock continued to tick and tock inside the room to their right, just barely heard before Harry deadened the sound with a flick of his wand. He turned towards her with a nod before gasping out a revealing spell as quietly as he could. A red dash of energy, humming and pulsing as it passed through her, spread out in an arch that was only visible from the point of origin. As the spell spread out and through the home it looked as if he was echolocating. The walls and internal structure briefly turned see through as the spell passed upwards and outwards, the tell-tale signs of occupation not blooming into existence.

“Shall we?” Harry relaxed his position somewhat, glasses sliding down his nose as he did so.

“Let’s.”

\---

They cleared each room with a single-minded precision; Harry entering first with Hermione immediately behind him to cover the angles he couldn’t get at and provide a cover for their rear. The hall they stood in led into a small kitchenette filled with silent appliances and rotten food still sitting upon the table. With a flick of her wrist she vanished the spoiled food, footsteps covered by the thin rug beneath her feet. A grayish brown puddle by the refrigerator was faintly reminiscent of blood, a sight that wasn’t unusual to Hermione now that they’d been using abandoned homes for nearly two years. With each domicile entered she was becoming more and more inured to the sight.

From there they plodded onward through another hallway that split into three doors, one an adjoining pantry filled with canned goods, another a small alcove for washer and dryer, and the last a living room. She rooted with her wand at the stacks of washed and folded clothing, Harry turning around to give her space to explore. She sorely needed new clothes, each transfiguration and scourgify brought the threads around her body closer towards dissolution, and she was very much against going without while on the run.

The empty living room opened out to a dining room, a master bedroom with an attached bath, and a second patio with no entrance from the outside. By the time they finished poking through every nook and cranny their hearts were in their throat. Even with the revealing spell they were always at risk of someone countering it in time, leaving them blind towards a potentially hostile presence. Luck, however, decided to prevail upon them that night. The home was as empty as it could possibly be.

Exhaustion and relief rolled off of their slumped shoulders as Hermione set herself to the task of erecting wards all over the windows and doors. The faint ward she spelled outside would alert her to the arrival of intruders, but these would keep anyone from being able to sense them from without. While not as good as a proper Fidelius Charm, they would have to do. The Fidelius took too long to set up and needed more than two people to make it work, and so they were down to second best. While she attended to security, Harry attended dinner. Within short order he’d inventoried the small pantry and pulled apart the cabinets in search of suitable sustenance.

When she was finally finished he’d rustled them up a transfigured meal of canned ravioli and pasta sauce into a proper dinner; steaming and simmering atop a floating blue-bottle fire. Life without electricity could be hard for a duo on the run, but magic more than made up for the difference. And simple though it may have been, she couldn’t fault Harry’s hastily picked up cooking skills.

When she sat down at the cleared dining table she flipped her tag along bag open and pulled out a large amber bottle filled with whiskey, setting it gently upon the table surface along with two crystal glasses she’d been taking meticulous care of. She twisted the cap off as Harry gave her a hard look, his eyes tired as he leaned back into the seat he’d claimed for himself. With a snort of indignation she flicked the cap at the exposed wrist he held on the table, snickering to herself when it landed with a thunk.

“Don’t give me that look,” Hermione filled the two glasses with two fingers of liquid, “You’re as much in this as I am.”

“Wasn’t giving you a look ‘Mione.”

“Sure,” she gave a limp wave of her wrist, “Here.” She slid the glass over to his side of the table before digging into her dinner with gusto and a profound lack of table manners.

By the time she’d finished her meal she’d refilled her glass three times; Harry giving her a look each time she poured. He needn’t worry though, she knew what she was on about, knew her limits and how tightly she could push them. The bottle refilled itself after her last pour, the result of a nifty spell she’d found not even two months past. It linked the bottle to a barrel of whiskey in a nearly abandoned pub known as the Bumpy Wizard, an odd and out of the way establishment up north near a little Wizarding village known by the locals as a fine stop for a drink and not much else.

She was fine with the situation, she got a fresh drink whenever she needed it, and they got… Well in this instance they got nothing at all, but she could hardly find it within herself to care much about that. People weren’t paying her for working within the resistance, and the money she’d made off selling her parents estate hadn’t gotten her very far after the Crown reaped its cut.

The duo continued to wile away the minutes in silence, bottle passing from hand to hand as they downed their small meal, silence continuing to reign all throughout the home.

It would be peaceful, if only she could convince herself of it.

\---

“Where were they last sighted.”

A howling scream took up residence in the tight room after she finished speaking.

“N-north, Lady Black!”

“And you’re sure of this? Absolutely?” A crooked wand tapped out an impatient message in morse code against the shuddering chest of the twisted body laid out before her.

“Y-yes, Lady Black…”


	4. Twisted and Peeling

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Re-Minimal editing, because portions from prior draft were included and I can't read.

Hermione’s ears popped with a sudden drop in air pressure before her eyes snapped open to the sight of a rather familiar dream; one that had become so common she could barely bring herself to feel fear any longer.

Though the breeze flowing across her warm skin was a rather new development.

Everything around her, in every single direction, was a slate gray darkness that extended outwards in a dim, flat shade like the wafting of soft smoke from a recently lit fire. Even the floor she was pressed against was shrouded in such a way that it made it nearly impossible for her to tell where it ended and the horizon began. The nudity in such a situation was new, somewhat startling even, but she felt no chill as the effervescent movement of the wind buffeted her hair and smoothed out across the plain of her stringy muscles and tanned skin. Now that she thought about it, in a dreamlike and out of sorts manner, she’d never once experienced temperature during these nightmares; never once felt anything beyond the press of gravity and the ministrations of her tormentor.

It was something to be glad of, at the very least.

As silence continued to fill her ears and the seconds ticked onward into who knew how many minutes, her muscles and tendons began to shake and tremble with the exertion of maintaining her position. Her skin, previously calm and soothed from the daily grind of exertion that she experienced, became taught and stretched as pins and needles filled her muscles with a restless, twitching energy. Her arms were pulled taut and to her sides, a cross pose that tugged on her fingers until her palms were flat up and the bones of her wrist pressed down painfully into the odd floor below her. This dream, or prison, seemed determined to allow her some sense of comfort; the floor below her though hard and unyielding, was soft as silk at the points where it made contact with her body.

The silence all around her was every so slowly replaced with the thumping beat of her heart and the rush of blood pounding unceasingly against her ears. Slowly, like a dimmer switch brought from low to high with the care of the elderly, a brightness began to fill her vision as each cut and every scar on her arms slowly lit up like the red neon lights she’d been so enamored with as a child. Her parents had brought her to a restaurant, she couldn’t remember where exactly, but the sign had been pressed and twisted into glass tubes that all ran connected with the steady hum of electricity and a light that flooded the darkness of the night with red and purple. The colors had danced all around her as she’d shifted beneath their glare, fingers held up in front of her face to watch with amusement and wonder as her tan faded into colors she’d only dreamt of.

That had been magic then; the reality was her now.

The reality was the familiar visage of her tormentor, torturer,  _ nightmare,  _ Bellatrix Black.

The woman leaned in from above her with a shark's grin and wild curls hanging down to brush against her nose, her ears, tangle with her own hair and bounce back up again as the witch began to laugh.

She’d had these dreams, these nightmares, ever since she’d first been laid across the floor of Malfoy Manor, a blonde demoness standing in the corner as her superior cackled above her. And so, after the Fall, she’d needed something just a little bit more than a calming draught (easily abused), or a Dreamless Sleeping Potion (an easy tolerance to build), to quell the waking terrors that haunted her dreamscape at night. Alcohol had become that manner, not so much that Harry worried outright, but enough that when she did it right she’d pass from waking to waking with nary a memory of what happened in between. Her shame wouldn’t let her pretend that this coping wasn’t worth it, was just as bad as the other options she’d discarded, but… Hypocrisy in an age of Darkness didn’t seem that terrible a sin.

The woman above her dropped down, as she always did, into a straddling heap atop her lap. It was a strangely intimate position, this recreation of her twofold experience, but this Faux-Bellatrix wasn’t banished by the finding of a sword nor the arrival of a much-needed friend. No, in this dreamscape she held full reign. Faux-Bellatrix seemed determined to fill her up with manic smiles and too sharp nails, her grin growing wider and fingers pressing urgently into the soft skin of Hermione’s stomach.

“Pet,” Faux-Bellatrix sing-song voice reached into her ears, a soft caress against her cheek as the Nightmare lowered herself further and further until she’d fully straddled her waist and run soft hands up the curve of Hermione’s hips and up over her breasts, stopping only once she’d reached the harshness of her collarbones. A disturbing sensation of heat where none had been brought Hermione’s rather lax mind back into the forefront of the nightmare, eyes widening in shock and surprise at what her broken mind had chosen to saddle her with. 

The woman wore no knickers, her body simply clad in the half torn apart dress that she’d worn during the start of this whole mess, the only difference being the rich black of the no longer stained garment and the necklace of black onyx pulled tightly against her throat. The black corset atop her midsection was pulled tight enough to show off her ample assets, cream skin contrasting rather beautifully, (though not that she would admit it), with the darkness of her clothing.

“Oh sweet Pet,” Faux-Bellatrix delivered her lines with a honeyed tone that carried with it the sweet scent of wine upon her lips, dark eyes piercing her very soul with an ever curling ink, “Oh Pet.” Hermione felt her breath halt and hitch as the woman addressed her in that tone, her toes curling and a pit of shame blooming in between the confines of her ribs.

Only a second managed to pass before those fingers around her neck received the order to attack. Her grip tightened and bore down until sharp nails managed to feverishly press their way into Hermione’s skin; the frenetic strength alarming in its intensity. She could feel her face turning purple and angry tones of red, her tan skin eaten up from the inside as blood flow and air were choked away. A warm tongue dropped out of Faux-Bellatrix’s mouth to skim the breadth of Hermione’s jaw, warm muscle moving languidly as she swept it across her cheek.

This was… Different. Usually the woman in her dreams was reluctant to touch her in any way except to harm her, but this felt… Safe. She was still left slack and unmoving the entire time, her fingers and toes flexing only slightly in response to the overbearing assault and throat locked tight enough she couldn’t even squeak in pain. The woman above her tightened her grip even more than Hermione had thought it possible, starbursts of light and shape blooming in her suddenly darkening vision. It was only when that tongue reached her lips that she was able to finally react, her hips rocking upwards in an attempt to dislodge the apparition from her chosen seat. 

It wasn’t enough. Faux-Bellatrix simply rode her out until she’d settled back down, her legs spreading and a warm and wet slickness grinding down into Hermione’s pubic bone as a reward for her meager efforts. The thighs around her hips began to tighten as the grip around her neck finally, mercifully, released. Heated palms slid down the hollow of her throat and shoulders as the woman pressed herself further against Hermione’s body until it seemed the weight would become one with her. Hermione sucked in great heaping lungfuls of air that tasted of ashes and sugar, a peculiar taste if there ever was one. Faux-Bellatrix slid her hands out to the sides until she’d traced the curving calligraphy upon Hermione’s arms, her hands only stopping when she’d reached out far enough to entangle their fingers and squeeze in some form of twisted reassurance.

“Tell me Pet, do you know who you belong to?” The words were punctuated with a sharp bite of teeth into Hermione’s neck that immediately retreated when she gasped in pain and shock. The dark witch reoriented herself until she was peering down eye to eye with Hermione, dark and unyielding as she waited for an answer. 

Hermione could only choose silence as an answer, unwilling and afraid to give voice to the darkness blooming into a flash of embers betwixt her legs.

“Don’t keep me waiting dear Muddy, I’ve come so far and waited so very long for this,” Faux-Bellatrix licked Hermione’s skin again, this time from the midpoint of her throat and upwards over chin until she’d managed to claim her lips with teeth and an invading tongue.

Hermione resisted the advances as much as she could; her tongue pressed up to the roof of her mouth while her jaw clenched shut with as much strength as she could muster. The demon above her managed to sense her reluctance, in both physical and emotional, and seemed to deem it unsatisfactory. A hand released from Hermione’s before sharp fingers began to dig and scratch at the hollow of her cheeks, forcibly prying apart her jaw until she was forced to give entry. A dark chuckle reverberated from the dark witch once she saw the parted lips, their touching bodies shaking with the depth of it and a torrent of slickness rushing forth to coat the inside of Hermione’s thighs with warmth and shame. A tongue, incessant in its searching, invaded her mouth to tangle with its twin, lips pressing harshly but uncaringly against her own.

The body atop her ground backwards and forwards, up and down, her face a visage of madness peering downwards through blackened orbs as she claimed Hermione’s mouth. She was feverish in this as well, her tongue and teeth nipping and darting with a frequency that Hermione slowly felt herself growing to match. Teeth clamped down upon her bottom lip before releasing and allowing a warm tongue to dart forward and tangle with Hermione’s; breath escaping both of them with the fierceness of the coupling.

Slowly, so slowly enough that Hermione felt a whine burst forth from beneath her throat, the lips retreated from her own. Dark eyes looked down upon her with a glare that forced her into a full body flush of heat as she quivered in place from fear and anticipation, her earlier reluctance subsumed by a heady want and need.

A very small, very quiet, portion of her mind from deep in the back of her skull began to think,  _ ‘If you can’t beat em’...’ _

The apparition sitting above he leaned in for a biting kiss, before pulling herself backwards and sliding down Hermione’s pelvis and legs. A hand eagerly began to press and rub between the meeting of her thighs, a thumb and forefinger coming across the sensitive button filled with nerves and throbbing between Hermione’s legs. One finger swiped across her gently before it was harshly pinched shut between harsh fingers, Bellatrix grinning madly at the moan and hiss of pain that slammed its way out of Hermione’s throat.

She pinched down harder and Hermione  _ screamed,  _ her throat turning raw and hoarse as she reacted to the pressure and the pain, thighs practically drenched with slickness as Faux-Bellatrix turned the pinch into a twist, pain lancing as harshly as it could up throughout her body. The woman’s free hand moved to glide across the tan skin of her belly, nails dragging lightly until she’d embedded red lines and raised skin. 

The apparition above her sat up before leaning backwards and sliding further down Hermione’s legs, her torso perpendicular and a hand eagerly pressing between her thighs until a thumb and forefinger came across the sensitive button filled with nerves between her legs. A finger swiped her gently before two digits pressed down and clamped the pearl of flesh between them, harsh and incessant as if she could pinch away the offending warmth between her grasp.

“I want to hear you say it,” the fingers pressed down her clit with even more force, “I want to hear you scream it,” fingers suddenly released to allow throbbingly painful blood flow to resume, “I want to hear my name from your worthless, filthy throat.”

Hermione was lost somewhere on the devil's version of cloud nine, her head so cottony and filled with pain -  _ pleasure  _ \- that she couldn’t even form a word to respond. The hand across her stomach lowered between her legs until she was rubbing and pressing against the sensitive flesh that had only recently been released. “Say it Pet, tell me, who owns you?” 

“Y-you,” the word was a harsh stutter coming from her throat, body panting and tears leaking from the corners of her eyes as she did so. That little spot in the back of her skull was now rumbling and pleased with itself, happy and elated at the absence of vehement denial. She couldn’t argue with something that didn’t exist.

“I couldn’t hear you sweet Pet, tell me, who owns you?”

“Y-”

\---

Hermione flew up out from her dream with a frightful intake of breath and a scream still dying across her lips, knickers soaked and thighs warm from the friction they’d been searching for. The scars on her arms were positively burning in pain, her body reacting automatically by throwing her off the small couch to land painfully on her hands and knees on the hardwood floor.

“Harry!” Her voice was as loud as she could make it, her mind frantic and too worried to care about someone hearing her through the wards. “Harry She’s here!”

A clatter from the other room let her know that the boy had heard her, the sound of him rolling out of bed and clomping across the ground as he shoved feet into broken boots and nearly stumbled his way straight through the door. Hermione stood to her feet and began gathering the loose items she’d kept out of her bag, each thrown in with no sense for care or fragility. She was lucky, if only just.

Her marks, Bellatrix’s claims, had worked out for her in a funny little way. The skin seemed to react only when the dark witch was first within some unknown range, just the once, before it faded back into the leveled out tingling that she’d gotten so used to after months. Her early warning system had saved them more than once before; serving as the last warning before a safe house was compromised or a potential ambush thwarted. Not a single one of them were willing to go toe to toe with the violent woman, and Hermione had gained the unwanted status of group alarm system.

Not that she wasn’t happy with it when it worked out, like now.

“How long ago?” Harry’s voice came from the hallway to the bedroom, right before he stumbled out into the living room with hair a mess and glasses askew across his face.

She huffed and tossed a map into her bag, “Just now when I yelled, you have the portkey ready?” Hermione threw herself forwards down the hallway until she’d come into the small space beside the kitchen that had admitted them entrance. With careful fingers and slow movements she slid away the lace covering the small pane of glass that allowed a view into the outside world, her breath caught in her throat as she attempted to keep their presence unknown.

The wardline flickered into vision, a crisscross of thread in gold and amber, each point still connected and tethered back towards herself. Nothing amiss, so they might have a second or two until the door she was at was bashed in.

“Harry, let’s go,” her voice dropped to a whisper as she spotted movement outside the range of her wards, figures approaching through the darkness and mist of night to surround the home.

His hand found her wrist as he pulled her away from the door; the clattering of feet on wooden boards reaching their ears as the same time her wards began thrumming and pulsing through her veins. She turned towards him with expectant eyes, Harry clutching a small thimble between his fingers. “Ready?” Sne nodded, tensing her body and gripping the top of the thimble as he spoke the activation key.

“Rocky.”

\---

One second, two, and finally Scabior finally had the door opening to his skills. The tense seconds he’d spent working on the rather impressive warding locks had been filled with the thought that he’d receive an Avada straight through the wood for his troubles. When he finally prevailed the load of tension that had hung coiled along his back dropped off like water through an oil slick, a fierce smile peeling out across his face. The door opened inward on silent hinges to reveal a small hallway leading towards an equally small kitchen, all the lights off and the place looking a mess of abandonment to anyone not tuned into snatching.

He could still smell the lingering scent of a sweet conditioner in the hallway he now stood in, a lingering taste of pasta and red sauce hanging about the kitchen as he moved forwards silently.

“Well?” The lanky man who’d addressed him was standing at his back with a wand out and face twisting all about as he tried in vain to see anything worth noting.

“They was ‘ere, not long ago. Let Black know we got ‘em on the run.”


	5. Prostration Before a Fight

As soon as Hermione felt her feet land on solid ground she was immediately piling off to the side, knees crunching down on twigs and soft tufts of the earth, the skin of her palms sliding against loose stones and errant detritus. Her stomach, once quite sturdy despite the hassles of an overactive childhood, immediately launched itself into somersaults that had her heaving and spitting as bile burst up the back of her throat to sting at her tongue. When the world finally ceased its spin she set her eyes to the right, left, her teeth grinding down as she realized where she was. A growl turned into a grimace turned into a feral sort of anger as she sat back on her legs and dug her fingernails into jean clad thighs.

_ ‘Another. Fucking. Forest.’ _

Oh Gods how she hated the bloody forests. It seemed that no matter what, no matter the plan, in the end they always found themselves trudging around some ridiculous forest while the physical manifestations of evil were hot on their heels. Forbidden Forests, The Forest of Dean, the mind-numbingly repetitive forests that lurked outside the menagerie of more civilized British society. Always forests.

If she didn’t already know it was true, she would have guessed that someone had it out for her.

She gnashed her teeth in anger, throwing Harry a devilishly peeved off grin, before grabbing ahold of her wildly swinging temper and whinging out, “I bloody hate forests.”

"Everyone whose anyone hates forests,” Harry replied, before spitting his own resultant bile at what looked to have once been a proud raspberry bush, now reduced to mere browned twigs and rotten fruits. “Though we do seem to have especially bad luck with them.”

“They’re the worst. I mean yes, they can be beautiful, and yes, seeing nature in all its boundless glory can be great,” she paused and stood to her feet on rapidly shaking legs, her vision nearly doubling as a spell of nausea took hold, “But after sleeping in dirt so long that my clothes have changed colors, well, I could do with a bit of a scenery change. It’s all just a mite repetitive. Why can’t we land at a beach? Or cliffs? Hells, I’d even go for a lovely little desert on the other side of the planet.”

“Well Ron’s the one who signs out the Portkeys,” Harry nodded as if that explained everything, his eyes catching the fire within her own as he kneeled down to tie off a loose shoelace, “I’d wager it’s a fair guess that we’ll keep on seeing more of em’ ‘til we get someone else who can build them as small as he can.”

She acquiesced at his words, hand running through her tangled hair, “Well that won’t be likely any time soon, least not until we figure out what’s been going on with them. And regardless we’ll filter onto another if we don’t figure out how they followed us. I mean, why the fuck are we in one to begin with? Bloody  _ how? _ It shouldn’t be possible.”

Harry flinched at the ice covering her tone, his green eyes shifting nervously as he sought an answer to her rather open-ended question. “Well,” he turned to her with his arms crossed and his chin in his hand, “We kept it tight, right? The only magic we used was for wards, scanning, transfiguring the food, and cleaning. Right? So… You know I’m not even going to guess. It’s got you beat it’s got me beat, we weren’t waving flags or flashing neon signs…” His voice trailed off at the end as she swiveled in place to observe the woodlands surrounding them, and avoiding really thinking on the issue in turn.

In return, she did the same.

The woods surrounding them were dense enough to nearly qualify as nothing more than a plot of land for trees and trees alone, the hearty wood growing so close to one another that the spaces between the trunks had filled with looping roots. It appeared as if each individual tree had decided that climbing over the other in search of the best available nutrients was the most viable survival strategy. Beyond the scaly bark there was almost nothing besides a blue-green lichen that covered patches of the bark and a soft green moss that compressed and wobbled underneath their feet. There was no immediate foliage to hide between on ground level as most had been stripped bare by wind or animals, leaving only the canopy above them to shield the ground from the sun's rays.

The longer she stared the more she found herself slipping towards a ridiculous hatred of woodlands, the inner fire growing so strong that for a moment she was worried that she’d hex the place into a flat clearing if she didn’t get away. Her eyes left the sight and peered down at her shoes as she thought back to his original question, once again coming up with a blank instead of actual answers. There was  _ nothing _ for her to go on. Nothing besides the intensity of the dream she’d been stuck in before noticing Lestrange’s arrival, nothing accidental or left out on purpose that would have brought someone to them. It was worrying.

_ She _ was worried. In the end she didn’t have an answer for any of the questions whatsoever. There was no way for her to determine how real, or fake, the dream had been, or whether it was even related in the slightest. If it was related, well then that could change things. It meant she was compromised, tarnished, a danger to their missions. And it very well could have been the case. 

_ ‘Fuck,’  _ she swore internally, the thought of  _ her _ being the reason for their predicament sending another shot of bile up the back of her throat.

They’d never once found out what Lestrange had used to curse her, other than the immediately observable effects there was nothing more for them to go on. It remained unhealed, though not bleeding all the time, and would react to Lestrange’s presence within a certain distance. Did it affect the Dark Witch as well? They didn’t know. In the instances where they’d ended up in the same vicinity it had never come up, Hermione had never let herself remain close enough to find out. Some more esoteric forms of magic, particularly high Light healing or warding, would sometimes have an odd effect on the words carved into her skin, leaving her bleeding and aching as though she’d had someone retracing their lines. But other than that?

Nothing.

Their short respite from the horrors of the resistance had been absolutely ruined and shredded in a manner she couldn’t identify by either luck, which she doubted, or another form of magic, which infuriated her to no end if she that was what it had been, and she’d not recognized it. And behind all that the still lingering feelings of  _ enjoying _ her time spent beneath the warm body of Faux-Bellatrix lingered on like a bad taste in her mouth. She knew what she’d been saying right before she’d woken up, she knew the words that had been ready to burst out if only she’d gotten off completely. Nothing was right, none of this was sane. And now here they were, in another gods forsaken forest while they waited on extraction or at least some reassurance from the remainder of their allies, no patronus in sight and no proper shelter either.

With a heavy sigh and bite on her lip she turned towards Harry and let her bag drop from where it rested on her shoulder and into her hands. “Come on,” she moved her head to summon Harry over, “Let’s get some rest.”

With a tired movement she let the bag fall flat onto the mossy ground between them both as she sat down and wearily shook her head. After she quickly unlatched the opening she reached inside and wormed her hand around, feeling blindly for the faint string no thicker than a loose thread that she knew was somewhere near the left side. When she felt her forefinger pass it by she grasped hold of it firmly and pulled with all her might until a faint click reached her ears. Almost immediately the rim of the bag popped open into a large circular shape while the inside suddenly went from displaying the contents within to looking like a black hole, an aberration that ate all light that reached it.

Hermione removed her hand and grasped the top portion of the circular rim, her left foot digging its heel into the ground as the toes of her shoe covered the bottom lip. She shifted herself forwards and upwards at the same time, the movement dragging up the top portion of the rim as she stood, the material expanding and stretching to keep moving along with her. Within no time at all the object looked like a giant circular pit opening directly into thin air, the top portion pushing up as high as she could reach on her tiptoes and with fingers extended. The backside, the portion Harry could still see, was now stretched and blended like a terrible modern art piece, the material warped from reality to fit with her Magics.

The charm she’d overlaid to her bag was old, a near ancient revision of what was currently classed as an ‘Undetectable Extension’, but instead of simply allowing her for extended space it was effectively holding its own pocket dimension. Where some wizards could enchant bags or trunks into holding living spaces far larger than their meager outer shells would make one assume, her current charm actually  _ linked _ spaces, rather than simply held its own. This particular bag had a working route to a runic-enhanced pocket realm, supported and built on by rituals and runes she’d studied over the past year. In the early Eighteen Hundreds this particular method had been deemed illegal by the ICW after a particularly nasty application had swallowed up and disappeared over thirty delegates to the Romanian Ministry, each walking into what they’d thought was the ‘next room’ only to never leave the pocket space.

But the laws be damned, as soon as she’d found out about it she’d set to work on recreating it, with a few valid safety features in mind. So long as someone was inside the space could be opened or the entrance brought to bear, no one would ever get stuck inside it without a manner of return. A final safety measure had pinned the entire thing to work as an inside out Portkey, meaning that if someone  _ was _ to go wrong (not that she thought her work would ever turn on her), one need only press their hand against a symbol written inside to find themselves sent immediately outside, no need for rescue required.

With a nod of her head she directed Harry inside, her eyes shifting about as she looked around for any last sign that they weren’t alone. When nothing met her gaze but the breeze filtering in through the canopy she pulled out her wand and began to weave a tapestry of repelling charms and Notice-Me-Nots’, each spelled to deter both passersby and animals alike. With that task accomplished she turned to follow him inside the hidden space. With a snap of her fingers the doorway closed in on itself, sealing them safely inside and hiding the bag itself from the world outside. In the worst case scenario the wards she’d laid down would alert her to someone’s presence and give her the time necessary to get a glimpse and determine their next plan of action, either emerging into a fight or slapping the emergency measures to travel by Portkey.

The inside of the space wasn’t much to look at, neither nice nor luxurious it instead existed in a mostly passable existence, just large enough for them to camp for the night. What she wouldn’t give for an extended tent like the one they’d gone to the Quidditch World Cup in, or even the slightly smaller variant that they’d used to camp out during the initial Horcrux Hunt. Beneath her feet lay a large rug that filled the space from end to end in a tea brown sea of fuzzy fabric and potion stains. The space itself was nearly the size of her old room with her parents, just large enough to move about in and have two cots laying side by side. Whenever she was more stable she’d clear the space and erect two worktables and a bench to serve as her potioneering station, sometimes even just a couch and a bookshelf so she could keep away from the world around her.

The space wasn’t her best work, there was quite a bit more she could have done with it had she been willing to branch out and sacrifice stability for extra room, but it allowed her all the freedom necessary to experiment with spells or potions, or the room to move about in if she needed to work off energy. Unfortunately it would never compare to the safety and open spaces she’d reveled in during their one month stopover at a safe house in Surry. She’d been given the entirety of the basement to do with as she’d pleased and had quickly set about with making it into her own mad laboratory. 

Any thought that had struck her, any whim or fancy with regard to spellcraft or theory, she’d tried all she could until time had finally come for them to move on. Her last walk around the space had consisted of removing the large pockmarks on the concrete from her experiments in delving into Ritual Magic, a topic closely entwined with the Arithmancy she’d loved as a child.

But like so many other things that space and the comfort it had presented was gone, rubble in a dying world.

With a sigh of exhaustion she sank down onto the carpeted flooring and removed her outer layers until she was only clad in a black stained tank-top and the torn jeans she’d arrived in. Harry was moving silently behind her, no doubt removing his own burdens as he prepared to sleep, and in his silence she set to work with getting their space ready. Against the faux wall, wooden particle board painted a dark shade of brown, she tapped her wand thrice upon a single black mark and awaited the locks to release. In only a few seconds the black spot grew and spit out a small wooden box no larger than her palm and built from bright red cherry wood, it’s hinges and lid inset and shaped to provide no external distractions to the naked eye.

Her fingers ran over the top and stopped upon the center, her index pressing down into the wood until it gave beneath the force and a sharp needle popped up to prick against the pad of skin. A single drop of blood welled out before she removed her hand and sucked the finger into her mouth, the box in her hand unlocking with a sharp  _ ‘Click’. _ She leaned backwards as the spelled components within it sprung outwards to land beside her hip and began unfolding into twin cots, the nylon fabric stretching as metal struts opened and lifted them a half meter above the ground. Setting down the box she turned around to crawl atop a cot, letting her feet dangle off the edge as she stared at Harry’s back and waited on him to settle into his own.

She cracked her neck and stretched out her aching muscles, “So what’re we doing after this?”

“Well,” he laid down on his back, hands crossed behind his head, “For now we rest. Tomorrow we figure it out. Right?”

“Right,” she replied, turning over to put her back to him as her mind descended into reflecting over the past few hours while her body slumped into a limp puddle of exhausted limbs. 

The last bit of sleep she received was blessedly free from the darkness she’d unearthed within her own heart.

\---

Darkness filled her vision and blood soured her mouth as she bit down on her lip and fought to keep her rampaging emotions in check. She could feel herself shaking, could chart every tremor that wracked her body and grew stronger with each day as the terms of her pact with the Lodestone went unfilled. Every day since Druella’s death had culminated in more and more magic flowing into her unwilling body. In a generalized sense it would be a good thing, more oomph to her spells so that she could spend hours on the attack without tiring even a little. But the drawbacks were starting to make themselves known. Besides the tremors and irritability she was losing seconds, seconds that she knew would one day soon turn to minutes, and then hours, until she was as bedridden and demented as her mother had been.

It was a powerful trade-off, the Lodestone; a sink for untapped potential that needed tending to lest it bite back with all that it contained.

And her solution to this vexing problem was gone.

Again.

_ She’d missed her. _

Even if she’d only missed her by minutes or hours the result was still the same, the girl was gone and just as irretrievable as before. If she’d had the forethought to turn the corner instead of diving off in a different direction, if she’d followed the main body of Snatchers instead of skulking off to the sides to remain focused on her spell. If only the sorry excuses for Wizards that she had under her command had lived up to their namesake.

If only.

Oh well. There were so many more of his kind and each were more eager than the last to step up into the vacated spaces. 

When she strode up onto the rickety old porch she’d caught the first whiff of the girls magic; a sharp prick somewhere inside her head that had her glaring off into corners and swiping her finger down the railing, her magic responding to the aftereffects of the cursed scars. With a careful grace she knelt beside the now opened doorway and thrust her wand around herself while intoning beneath her breath. In the space of seconds the ghostly threads of what had once been wards appeared in her vision, bright blue to stand in stark relief to the shrouded night surrounding them. The now dispelled the remnants did little more than stand as a marker to what  _ had _ been here, to the magic that was now floating back into the Aether, but they also served to let her know she’d been close.

In a flash she was striding through the doorway with her wand out and spells tumbling past her lips, the crooked implement emitting short pulses of light as it sought out any remnant magic and strove to make it visible. In front of the doorway that led into the hall she caught sight of a swirl twisted into a whirlpool, the threads edging outwards in sharp greens and hues of magenta, each converging upon a singular point that eventually disappeared into nothingness.

Portkey travel.

She had to give it to Rookwood, his new spells were working wonders and easily made up for the time it took him to craft them. The leaps and bounds he’d made at tracking apparition over long distances had been turned towards their latest hurdle after she’d informed him of his success that night almost six months ago, the one last stopgap that these rebels and blood-traitors were using to escape her Lord’s justice. A single unregistered Portkey could only be interrupted if you knew where, and more specifically  _ when _ , the traveler would arrive. And since the creation of a Portkey used a sensitive variation on a Fidelius Charm, it was at first suspected that it could never be cracked. The Maker, and by extension the object, were the only ones with the Secret, the charm within it holding onto the location and ensuring that spillover magic or a witness would never know where it had led to. 

But now that Rookwood had given it a shot, well, things were on the up and up. And now she had a lead. It wouldn’t be a fast method to track them as the spell to reverse engineer the travel path would take minutes or hours depending on the locations, but it still led her where she needed to go. With a flourish she summoned up a high backed easy chair and sank down into the satiny cushions with a smile, content to wait and pounce once the moment was right.

The Mudblood would be hers. 

\---

Dawn arose upon the forest that Hermione and Harry had taken refuge in, dim rays at first that barely sought to pierce the veil of mist that had settled over the knobby valley nestled in between two low mountains. Morning dew, clear and bright as it reflected the light from above, slowly dissipated as warmth suffused the quiet land. Hermione’s wards shook and awoke to the change in time and temperature when the layer of mist above them had thinned enough to allow sunlight to pierce through the canopy. Birds croaked a morning call, small animals dived and dug between the roots, insects in all shapes and sizes took to flight in their never ending search for sustenance.

It was within this peace that Hermione awoke with a startled heart and pounding head, her mind jumping from the lethargy of sleep and into the unpleasantness of their current situation. Her eyes, each caked over in grime and blurry at their first opening, scanned around the twilight interior, observing first her position on the cot and then Harry’s as he shifted and murmured in his sleep.

“Harry,” she mumbled, her throat dry and parched, “Harry, time to get up.”

The young man was just as groggy and disoriented as she was, his body shaking as he limply drifted to a state of near wakefulness. One second, two, she counted the space between them as she waited for him to come to full consciousness. In her impatience she shook out her arm and placed her hand against his back to push and rock him forcefully, all while repeating his name. When nothing seemed to work, the warm lump of a man retreating back to wheezes and snores, she pushed with all her might at the center of his spine and rolled at the same time until his body had unceremoniously dropped from canvas and onto carpet with a thud.

“Get the fuck up you ninny,” she admonished him, already starting to twist and lean herself off the makeshift bed.

His glasses were sliding down his nose as he rose onto his knees, a hand rifling through his hair as he shook and pulled on tangled knots. “Finally,” she whispered, as he leaned back onto his thighs and ankles to stretch his arms out over his head.

“Good morning to you too,” he spoke through a yawn, a pitiful look gracing his face when he turned to stare at her. “Can you check…,” he trailed off, finger pointing behind himself as he rose up on unsteady feet.

She nodded at his request and meandered towards the entrance with her wand held out in one hand while the other rubbed at her eyes. A few quick movements and silent spellwork gathered all the trailing edges of her wards onto the wand tip itself, her magic surging out from her chest as she felt along their lines and received an update on what had happened during the night as well as what currently awaited them outside.

Nothing. 

Her quick perusal revealed that everything surrounding them was as it should be, clean and crystal clear, her wards untouched by nature or magic alike. Through a pulse she traveled a thread that lay at the utmost expanse of her wardline to check in one any immediate life forms only to find after a second or two of travel that nothing besides an overly large squirrel awaited them. The animals and nature surrounding them was calm and pacified for now, only still faintly stirring as they moved to start their day in much the same way as she was.

“Nothing,” she said, turning away from the entrance as she did so. “Now what?”

He shot her a look that mixed his exhaustion with general unsurety and Hermione was sure that her own eyes radiated the same. “Well now we find some semblance of civilization.”

With that said she withdrew the cots from the floor and packed them back up into their wooden traveling box while Harry worked on cleaning their clothes with a hastily cast Scourgify. What she wouldn’t give for a proper shower and a washing machine, but alas, such things were not to be. When it was clear he was as finished as he could be she retrieved her clothes from the pile and sank back into them, her boots protesting as she tightened the laces and jacket stretching as she pulled down on the sleeves. With all that done, and Harry dressed as well, she opened the entrance and walked forward with her wand raised.

“Okay,” she spoke into the stillness, “Now which way?”

Harry walked forward to stand shoulder to shoulder with her before pulling out his wand and letting it rest in the palm of his hand, the ends balanced to leave it room to spin. He whispered an incantation in Parseltongue that soon had the wood tilting and wobbling as it sought out a direction for them to proceed in. The spell wasn’t originally designed to find human habitation, it having been invented hundreds of years ago by a people who were generally nomadic, but had instead been built upon a question. Instead of where  _ were _ people, it was where were people  _ active. _ Soon enough it was rotating like a helicopter blade, spinning ever faster as the tip began to glow a brilliant white as wisps of energy coalesced from his chest and flowed downward past the length of his arm to channel the spell. 

With a final flash of brilliantly stunning blue the wand came to a halt, its tip pointing at a forty-five degree angle to his left.

“Shall we?”

\---

Three hours of harsh uphill walking brought them out to the edge of the forested valley and up onto the rising crest of one of the low-lying mountains that buttressed it. The land standing out in front of them was open and clear of major vegetation with the exception of distant hedgerows and a thin creek that wound down from the highest point to their right. It was fields, Hermione realized after a moment of staring, likely cleared land on the outskirts of a farm for sheep or cattle. There were however no signs of any animals in the immediate vicinity, and by the length of growth it looked like it had been that way for quite some time. Deep at the edges of her vision, nestled between this mountain and the next, was a thin line that looked to be odd enough to label as manmade, likely a dirt or poorly maintained road. Beside it to the right she could follow with her finger until she reached a smattering of buildings, not enough to be a village but more than a single farm.

“Another one,” Hermione sank down to her knees and reclined into a comfortable position, “How much you want to bet that it’s been empty for weeks.” Her voice was addressed to the air surrounding them as she reached into her bag and pulled out a small canteen to swig a gulp of fresh water from.

“I’m not dumb enough to bet anything against that,” Harry joined her on the ground, “I’ve bet against you enough times' til the end of the world already.”

She nodded at his reasoning, “True. And there are no animals about. I can’t even hear a dog barking. If it was recent I’d expect at least a few to still be running around. No smoke either,” she raised her wand to her right ear and cast a silent spell to increase her hearing, “No sounds of machinery, no bleating of goats or sheep. If someone still has electricity I can’t see a speck of it.”

“There’s the chance there are no animals because it’s already dying,” Harry sniffed as he replied, “And they might not have any power. I can’t see any overhead lines, can you?”

Hermione scanned the edges of the small grouping of buildings before begrudgingly agreeing with him. “Well there’s only one way to find out properly. I’ll go in.”

In what was one of Harry’s most pronounced personality developments since Voldemort won the war, he simply nodded his head in acquiescence to her decision and set about lining his little spot with Notice-Me-Not charms and repellents. After he was done he reached into his pocket and began to root around for an emergency Portkey, his movements jangling the loose zippers of his jacket and glasses sliding down his nose as he looked down at his hands. Ever since Harry had managed to pull his head out of his ass, sometime around the second month on the run by Hermione’s estimate, he had realized that it was  _ okay _ to let someone else take the lead. That not every action need be determined and acted upon by the Boy-Hero. He’d grown from a shy teen afraid of letting anyone get hurt for him and into a man with the self-confidence to allow others to help him accomplish his goals.

“Alright,” he finished searching through the thin fabric, “Here.” In his hand he held a small American dime and dropped it into Hermione’s openly waiting palm, “The password is Nunchuck. It’ll drop you down southeast before hitting a redirect. The final destination is Savernake Forest. If anything happens, pop it. I’ll receive an automatic notice that you used it and come find you on my own. When you get there just hunker down and wait for me to arrive. If you’re not out by this time tomorrow I’ll leave on ahead, alright?”

She nodded and thumbed the small bit of metal, her fingernails tracing against the engraved head on one side while her eyes shot up to bore a hole into his brilliantly green orbs. “Alright.” With that said she dropped it into her pocket and spelled it closed before forcing down a shiver of icy fear that threatened to overtake her spine.

No matter how many times they needed to do this, one of them running ahead while the other remained behind, she would always get an ashy taste in her mouth and doubts creeping in against the back of her mind.

_ ‘Just one foot in front of the other…’ _

\---

That little mental reassurance before she’d set out on her mission would have done her good if the little grouping, a village she eventually decided, was closer than her eyes had deceived her into thinking. As it was the collection of homes, and the road that led into them, was nearly two hours of marching time away. As she continued on the sun above her kept its beating pace, the harsh light burning at her skin in and through the meager sun-blocking charm that she surrounded herself with. Sweat had begun to pop up along her collar and underneath her hairline before coalescing into trails that slid down her back and left her shirt a sticky mess of cotton and heat. Her boots continuously rubbed against the raw skin beneath her socks and feet, which had already turned into blistered masses, until even a softening charm hadn’t been able to save her from the movement rubbing away the skin on her ankles and on the outside of her pinky toes. The warm that grated against her with every step was slowly building towards a crescendo of pain the longer she went at it. The only consolation was the sloping incline of the land that she was traversing, a low angle that let her slide down on her bottom for part of the way until she’d reached a divot before the level field that remained. One single hedgerow met her at the bottom and was quickly made short work of with a confidently casted Diffindo, the brambles and hardened wood falling to pieces as her pass was made.

Eventually she managed to make her way forward on shaking feet and heaving breath until finally reaching the surly looking dirt road that led into the village proper, the whole lane of it from either side filled in with sagging potholes and loosely aggravated gravel. On either side stood barbed wire fences with notices warning trespassers to leave the fields alone as well as signposts proclaiming it to be a protected sanctuary. She entered the village with her wand out and eyes open while she moved with the utmost silence, a Disillusionment covering her form to keep her away from any prying eyes. The first row of homes were nothing more than barns really, great metal monstrosities propped up with wood and errant machinery that held within them old farming equipment and rusted gates to hold back animals.

Or what she assumed were animals, as she’d yet to see or hear even a single one.

With soft steps she moved towards the front door to the first farm and whispered a quick “Alohomora,” her wand tip pressing against the keyhole with fervency as her eyes darted back and forth. The lock behind her wand clicked and fell open within a second at the insistence of her magic, the muggle craftwork no match for even the lightest of unlocking spells. When the handle creaked open to admit her entrance she stopped and scanned the opening for any signs of detection wards or pressure sensitive runes. When nothing obvious caught her attention she ventured a foot forward at a time, aware that she was risking it with entering the domicile before doing a full scan.

Fully scanning, using the same spells that Curse-Breakers used, would have alleviated her nerves but would also have caused her to use enough magic to be noticed or caught out if someone knew what they were looking for. In the end the time it would have taken, as well as the probably noise if anything was tripped, drove her forward regardless.

The air that met her lungs was stale and devoid of rot or harsh chemicals, neither the brimstone and sulfur of black magic nor the sweet smell of decomposition. Smells that hinted towards recent human occupancy still lingered in the hallways she found herself in along with the adjoining kitchen. Spices and meat or something that vaguely hinted at the smells of her mother's kitchen remained present but depressed beneath the settling of the air. The floor beneath her feet was hardwood leading into the kitchen where it abruptly changed over to cheap tiled linoleum, a checkerboard pattern reminiscent of designs from eras past. The layout was simple enough, a gas powered stove was shoved to one side along with a row of cabinets covered in brown wood and dark black handles. Against the other wall was a small sink next to a large white refrigerator that looked to have crawled its way out from the early fifties, large and imposing as it sat there in a gleaming chrome tower.

All else was silent.

Hermione let the door come close to closing behind her before setting a thin stretch of ward that would stick between the gap and alert her if someone pushed it open without her awareness or permission. It wasn’t much but it would suffice her as an early warning system in the worst case scenario. Her first stop was the fridge and with frozen breath she opened it up to reveal a decomposing mess of vegetables and meats within.

“Fuck,” she mumbled into her hand, the door shutting quickly as she turned away and gulped in lungfuls of clean air.  _ ‘A week, maybe less,’ _ she reasoned in her head, mentally calculating to figure out how long it would take fresh foods to reach that state in this temperature. With a shake of her head she began rooting through the drawers and cabinets in search of any useful items or leftover canned goods. 

A minute of inspection brought forth nothing of use besides an old silver knife, handy in impromptu rituals, and an address book-calendar combination. It was the last item that ended up interesting her the most as it contained a list of all the small villages inhabitants as well as dutifully crossed off days in the back of the calendar. Her eyes ended up stuck to the last marked day, widening as she gasped in breath and her senses alighted into ‘flight’ mode.

The last checkmark was only made two days prior.

\---

If her perusal of the homes and abandoned streets of this village had been quiet and hidden before, she was now  _ beyond _ silent. The discovery that this place had been abandoned by at least some of its occupants only two days ago had alarm bells ringing in her head and worried glances shooting over her shoulder so much that she barely saw ahead of herself. It was completely possible that the Snatchers hadn’t been the ones to evict this family, that they might have left a dying town completely of their own volition instead of by force. But if her luck was running the way it had for the past year and a half, which it sure seemed to be, then it was the worst case scenario all the way.

In a sane and just world there would have been a perfectly acceptable explanation that didn’t involve a task force specifically created to hunt down Muggles and Undesirables.

The problem with that was in this world no longer being anything approaching sane or just.

_ ‘And I still have a job to do…’ _

In the end it was that which drove her forward into the unknown layers of the village, the creeping feeling of responsibility to Harry that she move forward and accomplish what they needed.

Food.

Shelter.

Possibly a method by which to contact the resistance or at least a safe enough space that when  _ they _ were contacted it wouldn’t be intercepted.

Beyond all that the little lion set to roaring inside her chest wouldn’t let her remain on the sidelines or back down from this challenge. If there was even a small chance that someone still remained, or had been left behind, she owed it to herself to at least check and bring them to safety if she could.

The remains of the first home she entered turned into a bust besides the discovery of the calendar and within short order she was off towards the next in line, a single story farm much the same as the one she left but across the road and bounded in by barbed wire fencing. It was much the same; empty house, locked doors, and no signs of a struggle to indicate a hastily covered attack. And after that fruitless search she set her sights on the next six in the row alongside the road, and each in turn proved as useless as the rest. Well, with exception to canned goods that was.

_ ‘Fuck Gamp’s law,’ _ she thought to herself, after stuffing yet another plain can of beans into the expansive confines of her bag. 

House seven was the last on her route before the dirt road turned mountain-ward and rose sharply with the incline, and Hermione moved to it with haste in expectation of finding more of the same. What she found instead was a surprise that brought a quirked smile to her face and confusion to her mind that refused to be alleviated the longer she stared. The door itself was nothing simple, a plain hunk of green painted wood inset to the larger borders of the rather plain looking domicile. But the interesting tidbit was the lock keeping it shut. Or rather, the three different locks.

Two were deadbolts, of that much she was sure, and the last was inset to the handle directly. They were all sturdy looking and gleamed silver beneath the glare of the sunlight, reflecting its rays into her eyes as she stood there and stared. Her spells made quick work of the tumblers behind each silver facet and quickly enough she was pushing and straining at the heavy wood. And heavy it was, it took her straining against the material and her back foot sliding along a doormat that read  _ ‘Happy to be Home’. _ When it finally gave way she tumbled forward and onto her hands and knees with curses spilling from her lips. When she crawled back up on her hands and knees she took in the interior surrounding her.

It was immediately clear that  _ someone _ hadn’t wanted their wealth or inheritance to be noticed by outside observers. Despite the ramshackle appearance outside these walls, the interior was beautifully decorated and furnished in obviously expensive tastes. Cream colored walls bedecked with portraits and landscapes wrapped around the space, hardwood floors supported plush looking couches and easy chairs while in the center stood a glass coffee table with large hardcover books deposited on the surface. Against one wall were two bookcases stuffed top to bottom with an assortment of old looking literature bound in hardcovers and lovingly detailed spines. Opposite to that treasure was a large television and entertainment center, each electronic item dark and reflective with the few rays of light peeking through blinds that covered a near floor to ceiling window.

She had two choices that led outwards from the room she’d entered into, one an open hallway that led deeper into the home and the other a small half-bath gleaming in white. After poking her head in and around she left to follow the other choice, her footsteps muffled with a spell and wand leading her past every corner. The first door down the hallway was a small linen closet that also served to hold a washer and dryer, soft fluffy towels and bath products rubbing shoulders on the shelving with cleaners and detergents.

Next on was a drawing room in the literal sense, a small space with excess lighting that highlighted a large table lifted to an angle and a desk littered with expensive looking drawing implements as well as reference photos for the paintings she’d seen inside the first room. It smelled musty and dry inside the small space and a thin layer of dust had settled over everything within it. If she had to hazard a guess she’d assume that this room had seen far less use as of late, even accounting for the occupants possibly only leaving less than two days ago.

She turned to leave and nearly passed it all on before her eyes caught sight of a small safe tucked away underneath a table on the opposite side of the room. It was small, dark and gray, with a spinning numerical dial pushing out from its front.  _ ‘...Might as well,’ _ she thought, before kneeling down and pressing her wand tip to the metal and hastily whispering  _ ‘Alohomora.” _

The sight inside had her heart beating nearly outside of the confines of her chest, breath quickening as she took in the glittering items. Bars of gold, platinum, and silver all rested against one another in a pile at the back; each stack nearly high enough to fill the safe to its roof. Alongside it was a bundle Fifty Pound notes, each neat and crisp beneath the container of a rubber band. The money, despite being Muggle in origin, was still a usable currency for when things got tough and could easily be exchanged for Wizarding equivalents if one had the right contacts. Beyond that it was also great for a full meal at a restaurant that would fill them up just as well as if she’d been taking lunch in Diagon. The gold and other precious metals could be used to barter with as well or broken into smaller pieces for rituals or bindings in a pinch.

All in all it was a lucky find and a great turn around to the anxiety that had been plaguing her ever since she’d left the first home. The cost might have annoyed her slightly more during the beginning of their revolution’s exile, but as it was she’d been on the run for long enough that ransacking someone's home had become second nature and part and parcel to survival.

Hermione stuffed each and every item from within the safe into her secured bag before leaving the room and heading off towards the last two doors down the hallway. As she moved she noted the stillness and lack of silence, still nothing whatsoever to prove that this place was inhabited by anything other than ghosts and air. One door led into a small bedroom, nothing much to poke at besides a dresser and a closet filled with mens clothes that wouldn’t fit either her nor Harry unless she transfigured them, and even in that case the synthetic fabrics would revert the magic at some point after application. With a shake of her head she left it behind and walked out towards the door opposite to the bedroom.

It was a kitchen, all beautiful dark wood and gleaming metallic silver, just as warm and inviting as the Weasley’s home had once been. She wandered forward with short steps and pinched her nose shut before opening up the refrigerator in anticipation of what would be before her. Even at just a crack it told her as much as she needed to know, decay and lack of electricity accomplishing their dual task. From there she opened cupboards and drawers until finding yet another piece of good fortune. A wine rack was settled into one of the cupboards near the sink and held within it two large bottles of a fairly old vintage, her mouth salivating as she stared at the faded paper labels. With a devious grin she stuffed the bottles within her bag and whistled a happy tune at her fortunate acquisition. If anything, she was happier with the wine than the gold and money stuffed under her arm. 

Her day was slowly turning out quite well, all things considered, even despite the oddity of the inhabitants' disappearance. She’d not yet had a single instance of a ward she’d laid down being tripped, she hadn’t yet come across any on her own, and her bag was filled with food and money but most importantly the life giving elixir of good wine. If all went well, she could see herself out by nightfall and send of a Patronus to summon Harry down to shelter. If they moved quickly enough she might even end up sleeping in an actual bed for the night, a thought that brought a particularly happy smile to her face.

With a grin stretching her lips and renewed vigor powering her steps she left the odd little domicile behind, her wand whipping out after she stepped outside the door to weave a ward between joins of the wood. It was at that moment, as she turned back towards the street, that her world came crashing down.

Across from her, with eyes as wide as she assumed her own to be, stood a small man in tattered clothing closer to rags than a proper uniform, a wand held out to his side and a dangerous aura radiating off of him in waves.

“Fuck.”


	6. Burning Brightly

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter was written months ago. I've re-written it five times.
> 
> I'm still not super happy with it, but here it is.

Alaphard Beaumont Fletcher knew down to the absolute most minute detail exactly what was to be expected from his rather meager life. Hells, he had known it all ever since he had been but a young boy of ten. 

That fateful birthday had, among many things, included a visit from his Great Grandfather; the head of the Fletcher lineage that had still remained in Louisiana after the Great War, and an all around bastard if Alaphard’s father was to be believed. Their large and stately assortment of family members and House Elves had all ended up descending upon the family plantation, and all of them were there to prep  _ him _ on the big move. 

They were heading to England; the big hop across the pond, and Alaphard had been hand-picked to live on the Manor grounds of his Great Uncle William, a true Fletcher born and bred. It was  _ supposed _ to have been a simple move; quick, easy, and to the point. He would take a few Portkeys along with the family while also getting a chance to see a few of the sights along the way, and arrive just early enough to spruce up their new home before his first semester at Hogwarts.

But In the end that never did end up happening, or at least when it was all said and done it was nothing at all like he had been expecting, nothing at all like the stories his own parents had told him. Still he hadn’t been too worried at the sudden changes or rising powers; no, his Great Grandfather clued him in just before he graduated, saw to it that he knew exactly what would be required of him.

And Alaphard, massive idiot that he now knew he had been, drank it all up. It was his own damned fault that he had fallen into this role, and now there was absolutely nothing to be done about any of it at all.

His new Masters all belonged to House Crabbe; a result of  _ their  _ family cannibalizing  _ his  _ family with marriage contracts and blood adoptions that ended up leaving poor Alaphard as the new Vassal Head to House Crabbe’s new head, one Zacharius Crabbe III. The man was a right bastard through and through that left nothing redeemable about him, and no action beneath him. He was a  _ ‘cunt on a stick,’ _ as Alaphard’s Mother was like to say.

All Alaphard knew was that Zacharius was a pain in his side if there had ever been one; a man so overly swollen on his own self-importance that he damn near waddled beneath the weight of his overblown ego. Alaphard  _ hated _ the man with the same burning passion of Fiendfyre unleashed, and instead of even being able to serve his new House as he had hoped, Alaphard had instead been ponied up in a hair brained attempt at fealty until he’d ended up beneath yet  _ another _ damned family.

The Malfoy’s. Or specifically  _ Black, _ though in the end they amounted to being one and the same.

Not that the name really changed anything about the fact that they all still served  _ Him _ in the end, but this current position was just so very useless for all the learning that Alaphard had underneath his belt. Specifically, he now found himself underneath a team headed by Scabior, off in the middle of who knew the fuck where, with a thumb so far up his ass he could lick it and nothing going for it all except a deep and roiling hatred for the Muggle countryside.

And his mission? Absolutely ridiculous, beyond all belief. They all expected him and his crew (a bunch of drummed up Pepper-Up addicts from somewhere north of the Island,) to find  _ the _ Girl.

Undesirable Number Two.

Or Three; it seemed to fluctuate depending on whatever the day's news cycle had drummed up, and whatever act of Resistance organized terrorism had been at play during daylight hours. 

But regardless of his intended target, Alaphard  _ knew _ that this was a fool's errand at best and a wild goose chase at worst. On the other hand, he  _ also  _ knew that if he managed to catch her he would be made for life; his lousy name would be dragged up out of the gutter to stand proudly beside his lofty ancestors until the Fletcher name was no longer a mere Vassal branch to Crabbe, but a reborn House of their own. 

Fat chance of that happening though.

He remembered the girl from the pictures that had been plastered out across the Prophet from back before the Dark Lord consolidated his power, from back before the world was pulled kicking and screaming until it was right side up. She had always been the uppity Mudblood in his eyes, always riding about on the Halfblood’s coattails in an effort to upstage all those around her. It had been a pity what the country had slowly been descending to over the years; celebrating the accomplishments of  _ swine _ over those of true blood Heirs, giving in to the influx of Muggle bred bastards and kowtowing to their needs and beliefs. 

But his Lord had fixed it all, in the end.

And now here  _ he _ was, out in the middle of nowhere, looking for  _ her. _ The one woman the whole country had been searching for over nearly a year. Still though, Alaphard soldiered on.

\---

Blightsmore was one hell of a shit-hole of a town; a lowdown Muggle shitheap spliced and wedged down tightly between two mountain ranges, and all the land once having belong to the extinct House of Peverall. And on top of it being a right shit heap, the land was now all  _ his _ to search in quietude, excepting one thing-

Lestrange.

_ Korrigan _ Lestrange.

A lumpy brained, inbred, lesser son to a lesser son of the Continental branch of House Lestrange; an imbecile, were Alaphard not polite. But that wasn’t to say that Korri was  _ really  _ bad company, he could carry on a conversation and wasn’t so much a dullard as he was a Yes Man over everything else. It seemed nothing came past his lips but  _ “Yes Alaphard, No Alaphard, If it pleases you Alaphard,” _ over and over ad nauseam until Alaphard was all but certain he would be hearing it in his dreams for years to come.

A bloody travesty, far as he was concerned at least. And it had been as such ever since he had received his marching orders to pinch upon his newly inked Snatcher’s Mark to bring the hounds down on the Undesireable’s head, should he find her. Secondary to that was the directive to snap as many pictures as he could, as quickly as he could, to fill the Prophet with gallant views of  _ His _ loyal soldiers doing their part to keep the countryside safe.

Alaphard had expected that most likely he and Korri would end up wandering around the countryside, taking a few pictures if he felt so inclined, pillage a few empty hovels and find a stash of good wine or gold if they were lucky.

At no point had he expected to run into anything, or anyone, and definitely not on this end of the empty shell of a town.

But the sight currently standing before him just about beggared belief.

It was  _ her. _

_ The girl. _

She was standing facing away from him on the dingy porch of some rundown house with her wand arm weaving patterns and lines throughout the air. Warding? He wasn’t sure, he couldn’t see the spells and nothing  _ seemed _ to be happening, but the most important thing was that she wasn’t paying any attention.

At all.

Alaphard pinched himself; partially because he had been ordered to and partially because he wasn’t one hundred percent sure he wasn’t still dreaming in his bed, still cozy and warm and yet to wander Shitsville. He turned slowly, quietly, looking about to find Korri absolutely nowhere in sight (as per usual), and holding in a sigh of dismay he drew his wand from the scabbard laced tightly against his inner wrist. 

_ ‘Damn Scabior,’  _ Alaphard decided,  _ ‘And damn waiting on his shitty reinforcements.’ _

His mind closed as he readied himself; either he would kill the witch or capture her, but either way he would pull her or the body back to his Masters and claim the glory as his own. He would elevate his little offshoot of the Fletcher line, light up his name within all of their eyes, and likely walk away with a lovely bit of high praise from his current Mistress herself. After all, he didn’t see  _ Her _ anywhere around now, did he? No, it was just him and lonely Korri, and their bright red target just getting ready to turn around and stare him down.

As she turned to face him, he received a front seat to the slowly dawning realization in her eyes that she was no longer alone, that she had been far too reserved and now would pay the price.

What he didn’t see, and in retrospect he certainly should have (she was Undesirable Number Two for a reason after all), was the wordless Avada that came streaking out across the open air with all the speed of a bolt of greased lightning.

His eyes closed, and he would see no more.

\---

Hermione’s wand arm rose and fired without any thought or rational input on her part; one minute she was turning around to stare into the eyes of the man before her, and the next he was falling down amid a cloud of dust and the sound of lonely chirping birds. Green light spilled over from her spell until the space was lit with an eerie glow. It wasn’t much but she knew that no matter how little it was,  _ any _ light could be noticed if he had a compatriot nearby. She moved -  _ sprinted  _ \- before her mind could catch up, hurrying along as fast as her sore feet would carry her while her hand reached down into her pocket to finger the tiny dime bouncing within.

_ ‘Fuck, fuck, fuck-’ _ Her mind rolled over and over with the mantra, suddenly all too aware of the mistakes she’d made up until this point and a fear of them following along the Portkey’s trail. She couldn’t use it, not here at least, and not while there was still the chance that anyone would be near her. 

The bag strung along her shoulder bounced and swung painfully against her hip as she pounded out a trail along the side of the house and back towards the entrance to the little village. Her first thought, a plan to Disapparate as soon as she could, was dashed into a million little pieces as soon as her mind caught up with how horrid of an idea  _ that  _ was (compared to Portkey, at least).

_ ‘She’ll  _ ** _know_ ** _ ,’  _ the frightening truth sprinted through her mind even as her body pushed further against the strain and fatigue that was fighting to catch up to her weary muscles. She couldn’t be sure if there were more of them, but if there was one-

_ Crack! _

A blue spell ricocheted from where it had landed off beside her left foot, the blaze just barely missing her heel as she ran onwards. Within seconds another spell exploded just off to her right, her body twisting as she fought to send green bolts at an awkward angle behind herself, just barely grazing the slowly growing group of Snatchers now adamantly on her tail. She ducked behind a shed in the backyard of the home she had just ransacked, her feet skidding to a halt as peered past both her shoulder and the wood to observe their now far more cautious approach. 

One, two, three-

Each fell to her spellfire in just as many seconds when she turned her body around to a lean target, backing up off the small shed and into the weeds and broken grass that were just behind herself. The Snatchers returned to following her with a renewed vigor; but she was fast, had trained herself to be fast, she knew that her life absolutely depended on being fast-

“Get back here!” The roaring voice was coming up from just behind her, a lock of chains exploding upon the ground right by her feet while her body careening up and over a stand of dead bushes, her movements only barely managing to dance around their spells.

_ 'Oh buggering fuck-'  _

Her foot slipped out beneath her to send her body spilling downwards, the bag around her shoulder torn loose by her movement and an  _ Incarcerous _ that wrenched it free from her hold. Hermione was left to spin herself into the movement; her body rolling along the ground as she reached back and pointed her wand to blast out a modified excavation spell that she had learned just a few short months ago. The spell was perfectly timed and specifically modified to remove large swaths of dirt (or heads), and two black robed figures disappeared into a flash of burnt orange and red mist.

The sound of another voice alerted her to their closing movements, “Around the side!” 

The back half of the home suddenly seemed to be swarming with Snatchers all sprinting at her position with a rapidity that left Hermione heaving air as she hurriedly pulled herself up and into sprint. She turned to jump overtop a stubby hedge with little regard to the branches and brambles that tore at her skin and clothes as she made her escape, lungs panting and teeth burning with the chill now biting through the air. Her pants leg caught on a last bramble, one  _ more  _ impediment to her forward movement, body shuddering with spasming muscles as she fought her way forward over fallow ground and dying grass, nothing else around her for shelter or diversion.

She was stuck.

_ ‘No.’ _

Her body dropped low onto the ground, the dime within her pocket now lying forgotten and untended, her body twisting until she could face the oncoming group with some modicum of stability. Her hands moved at a blistering pace as she began to weave a blue-tinged shield, wand working feverishly and dripping sparks as she did so. Within two seconds spells were ricocheting and knocked away from her little bubble of safety, the bolts being paid no heed at all as she turned herself towards far less defensive spells. 

The ward she wove wasn’t hard, at least not like it would have been so many years ago when she was naive and blindingly  _ Light, _ but right now the fight and blood were giving her a much-needed boost of maddened energy, the surest predictor of success being the knowledge that if she failed in this task there would be no one around to save her. She could only succeed because only the dead would fail this test, and she had absolutely no intention of joining their hallowed ranks.

Thin strands of golden web spun from the light of the sun, a shimmering veil of fiery spellwork threading itself together under her shivering ministrations until a tapestry had been woven at her feet and stretched all out in every direction. She  _ pushed _ herself as far as she could until every bit of energy drained out into this trap, this Light styled abomination of Dark Magic, her eyes two glowing embers as wisps of smoke puffed into existence when the threads expanded outwards. It took only a second, or maybe two or three at the most, but soon enough her work was done and she was back up on her feet as the thin shield behind her began cracking all to pieces when a final volley of spells smashed into its protective front.

She  _ sprinted  _ as fast as her flagging energy could carry her; fear being the only thing keeping her going at that point, and all in the service of escaping the boundary of the trap that she had set.

When she passed its edge and felt the energy directly beneath her die off back to normal levels, she turned and wove another shield in front of their advance. She watched with faint amusement as the Snatchers remained none the wiser and all eyes on her, no second spared at all for the invisible wards pulled taut beneath their feet.

Hermione smiled something devilish and painful as she began weaving another protective shield that was even thicker than before, watching giddily as the last Snatcher (the seventh in the group, long blonde hair and his eyes reeking of madness), stepped onto the killing field, right as-

The whooshing sound of air being sucked into the field was about as close to the sound of a bonfire flooded with petrol as she could imagine. The entire field in front of her, from only ten paces or so from where she sat and all the way backwards towards the home she had only just left, erupted outwards into flame and roaring inferno; all the Snatchers stuck within its fiery grasp. The flames were all white-hot and burning uncontrollably hotter than any natural blaze, the screams released from the tortured and burning lungs of her prey only adding to the madness of the blaze.

Hermione smiled while a rough chuckle beat its way out her throat as she watched them turn to char and corpses, her body and mind in awe of the spell and its capacity for reckless mayhem. It felt  _ good _ to finally strike back at them like this; sure, Kingsley wouldn’t have approved of her method (and neither would Dumbledore, now that she thought about it), but both men were dead and gone, this was  _ her _ world now, and she would be dead before she gave up fighting or turned tail completely.

Heat pulsed outwards from the inferno until her neck was doused with a layer of sweat and smoke that choked out her lungs and obscured her vision. She spared a second to wipe her hair off of her brow from where it had stuck about her face, the taste of salt and blood leaking against her tongue. Tears streamed out the corners of her eyes as smoke began to irritate them, and with a final heaving laugh of triumph, Hermione stood, and began to walk towards the far off line of mountains.

The snapping sound and blink of apparition wasn’t something that Hermione would consider as being hard to miss. It  _ really  _ wasn’t; one second there was nothing, the next a cracking of air and sound as a person filled (or left) a void of air. Still she somehow missed it, or had ignored it, too caught up in the fire and flames to notice or even care. When a body collided into her own it came to her as much of a surprise as it could have been; her body one minute relaxed and the next swept off her feet until she collided down into the ground, with no say in the matter whatsoever.

A rough hand ground down upon her throat to lay four fingers to the right and a thumb to the left that was bearing down painfully into the flesh between her neck and jawbone. A second hand was upon her just as quickly with fingers wrapped painfully tight around the wand arm’s wrist as the body atop her leaned in tighter and tighter. Hermione bucked the attacker as much as she could, her hips jerking and legs flailing ineffectually as the twisting grip upon her wrist bone pushed and pushed until the bone gave way with a maddening  _ ‘Crack!’, _ and a scream wrenching its way out of her throat.

_ “No!” _

Her voice was hoarse and raw as sound tore up and out of her throat, all the air pushed away as her body blinded itself to the pain of her broken wrist. Fear leaked straight into her mind as cold bands of iron wormed their way up her legs in shifting loops that pulled tighter and tighter until she was pinned down into place. Her voice trailed off into a rumbling croak of exhaustion and blinding fear when she realized just how stuck she was, mind roiling and fidgeting-

And then  _ She _ spoke.

One word, feather soft against her ear, quiet and filled with just the faintest sliver of warmth.

_ “Mine.” _

\---

Beneath the stone foundations of Black Manor, beneath all the rotted wood and lingering scent of death, a metal Nail as thick around as a finger and twice as long split down its middle. The twinned halves shivered and shook within their post as a feverish heat built up and up until slowly, quietly, the black iron began to turn orange and redden with the outpouring of magic from within its core.

It melted, eventually, hours after splitting and dead to the world at night, the color flashing through a cacophonic rainbow as something  _ heavy _ began to pulse. 

The runes scattered around the space blinked white, then red, temperature dropping as a scream of ancient power surged forth in search of its Mistress.

\---

Bellatrix was pulled from fitful slumber by a scream still dying on her lips and a hammer pounding against the inside of her skull, indomitable magic still swirling through her blood to hum and burn as it spread throughout her core.

“Fuck!” She slammed a hand against the wall beside her, rage escaping her lips as she screamed in alien pain. A too pale hand clawed its way down her face as seconds turned to minutes of waiting out the tide of anguish and anger.

Eventually the spell had passed enough for her to tumble from the bed in a fit of limbs and sheets, leather pants and black shirt donned as quickly as she could. Boots followed next, her feet wrapped in thin socks that chafed and blistered, a hooded robe completing the assemblage as it twirled about her back and the door slammed closed behind her. Two wands rolled between her fingers, one her own and one so different that it nearly hurt to hold; bone white and straight as an arrow, it held and had touched darkness but was still so Light as to singe her fingers.

She rumbled out a darkened chuckle, tucked them both into pockets safe and secure, and made her way downstairs before any of her underlings could find her.

\---

Hermione was pulled from fitful rest and into the waking world with a gasp of pain and shaking muscles that seized in time to the ache pounding against her cramping back. Her shoulders burned with pain from being pulled back tight against the wall, her arms both manacled behind herself and pinned into heavy stone. Dirty hair clouded her vision from where it sat atop her brow, and to top it off a cold draft was wrapping up and around her too thin form until her body shivered and teeth chattered inside her mouth.

Hermione was just barely aware enough to observe the cell with as much care as she could muster; her face dead set into an unreadable position but brown eyes both wide and roaming. The space was small for a dungeon cell, the floor a patchwork of cobblestones lying beneath a thin layer of hay that prickled against her toes, all walls except the one behind her made of interlocking bars just barely wide enough to see through. The cell door opposite to her held an armada of locks in quick succession, with each one going down larger and more intense than the last, and all of them twisted and heavy things with chains interwoven to prevent magic from breaking them. Hermione could see the barest hint of blue and green threads, likely a secondary spell should she manage to make it even that far.

She wouldn’t make it, she was sure of it, but even then it was nice to know that they felt all of this security was necessary.

No, there would be no escape for her. Certainly not with her eyes as heavy as they were; leaden and wet and filled with tears of pain; two crusted and weary orbs that barely seemed to fit inside her pounding skull. Her mindscape was just as red and raw as the rest of her, a consequence of all the attempts to plunder and reveal her secrets, her treasures, the locations of  _ they _ and  _ them, _ all just barely hidden by a shield that as of yesterday had never once been truly tested.

It was mostly certainly well tested now, and just as well proven in her defense. Three marked Death Eaters had all been unable to pierce the iron veil across her mind, none lucky enough to be the one to drag their answers out of her. They celebrated her success with heavy fists and rounds of  _ Crucio  _ that screamed at her with enraged voices, a stinging pain her only reward.

Hermione spat a congealed wad of blood and spittle from her mouth, the dehydration now weighing her down just as much as their torture had managed. Only her ears seemed to be just as attentive as when she had first arrived, both open and ready for the silence to give way to their approach.

Eventually it did, because luck just seemed so very determined to never join her side.

“Mud.”

Hermione strengthened the barriers within her mind until her eyes clouded against intrusion, her thoughts rushing as she attempted to discern by voice alone the identity of the new arrival.

He (and it was a he, she could tell that easily at least,) walked forward with heavy footsteps and hands that made quick work of the numerous locks around her cell. Soon enough he was ready and able to wrap meaty fingers around her neck, around her hair, pulling and twisting her into a pitiful whimper of pain. His nails were still drenched in the dried remains of the previous session, the iron smell cloying at her nostrils, and it was with no small amount of revulsion that she tried to jerk and yank her head away from his fetid grasp.

Her lips opened to reveal a hoarsely worded “Carrow,” her tone so dissimilar from the one she was used to speaking with. All the effects of screaming her mind away had worn against her vocal cords until the only thing they had been easily capable of were screams and sobs of pain. He held her still for a moment before reaching down into his pocket to retrieve a darkened wand that had Hermione’s heart racing and breath panting as she readied herself in anticipation of the attack.

It lasted minutes, or maybe hours, but eventually a second pair of feet joined them at the door to the cell, a voice humming merrily to itself all the while with just enough of a darkly feminine lilt that Hermione could place who it was almost immediately.

Bellatrix.

_ Again. _

The woman pressed forward into the tiny cell with a languid pace that soon enough led to a hand cupped underneath Hermione’s chin, and the other laid atop her shoulder. Her head pitched back and forth as black curls of hair splayed out to dance in front of her wavering vision, a gleaming smile barely seen in the spaces between. The woman’s eyes were pitch black pools that sucked her in once they made contact; scrabbling fingers and pressing knives keening against the outside of her defenses with all the force the woman could muster.

Fingers, nails, the scratching of a pick-axe; it all picked up and crashed down on her until whimpers of pain escaped her throat, stable in her defense but wounded all the same.

“Amycus,” Bellatrix pulled away from her as merciful relief descended on Hermione’s mind, “Anything at all?”

The man pressed his wand against Hermione’s chest with as much painful force as he could muster, little warming spells and healing passing through the wood to bring Hermione back from the brink as he stood there without an answer. 

“No,” he finally replied, “She’s been quiet as a dormouse ‘cept all the screaming. What’d’ya want me to do with her now? She’s buttoned up tight.”

Hermione’s eyes were slowly opening as the bruises were wiped away, and before long they were wide enough for her to narrow them on her own as she waited on the Dark Witch’s answer. Bellatrix pushed her way forward and once again lashed a warm tongue up against her cheek, a nip of sharp teeth tugging at her bottom lip when she pulled away.

“Keep her hanging, keep her alive.” The witch withdrew from the cell without a single glance backwards, “I’ve a plan for little Muddy that’ll open her right up. I get what I want, and maybe she does too, if she’s lucky.”


	7. One of Us

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm not that happy with this chapter. It's mostly a retelling of the first one-shot I did for this A/u, but the editing/grammar/pacing is sloppy and I've been staring at it for weeks without any real headway into editing it. 
> 
> It is what it is; no excuses for that.
> 
> Enjoy.

Five days passed in relative quietude after Hermione’s rather disconcerting (though reluctantly enjoyed,) liberation at the hands of Bellatrix Black. Carrow had immediately backed off to leave her unmolested, though his absence turned into more of a worry than a comfort as the hours dragged on. The only remaining shred of actual comfort was the well-earned realization that at no point had they managed to worm their way past her defenses, new and untested as they had been. 

She had suffered through trials by the remnants of their Resistance; Kingsley himself had made efforts often and repeated to broach her mind at inopportune or unexpected moments, but even their hard work was nothing in comparison to  _ truly _ being on the receiving end of someone wishing to both do her harm, and crack her open for a full perusal. But she had made it by the skin of her teeth, a lopsided grin permanently plastered to her face as she hung against the wall in a dehydration enforced delirium.

Until, that was, a sharp clang rang out through the space to alert her to a new arrival. One by one the locks of her cell clicked open, a dark wand pushed ahead of the intruder. 

Alecto Carrow; twin to Amycus in both looks and temperament, the witch had a smile spread across her lips that showed too sharp teeth and an eerie amount of pleasure towards her task, whatever that was in this case. The woman entered into the room with no words spoken between them and a wand-point soon pressed against the manacles holding Hermione to the wall, a second passing before barely heard  _ ‘Click,’ _ released her. Hermione slid downwards against the wall, her knees crumpling beneath her until Alecto was forced to support her with a wave of magic that held her floating in place. 

Manacles closed around her wrists once more, this time clicked tightly one to the other, Alecto pulling her bodily along until they were out of the cell entirely. She was pushed forward bit by bit, feet trembling as the magic wrapped around her body slowly dissipated to leave her walking without assistance, the tip of Alecto’s wand wedged between two vertebrae and pushing forward with a biting amount of pain. They wandered up a long flight of stairs before turning left at a crossroads; hallways running either side but no one else about. Hermione moved with a deliberate slowness hidden only by the extent of her prior torture; slowly taking the twists and turns of hallways that looped back on themselves, through rooms as myriad as a study to a kitchen, towards what she eventually assumed was the rear of the exorbitant Manor.

Alecto leaned forward when eventually they stopped before an off-white door, golden trim and filigree proclaiming  _ something _ in a language that Hermione couldn’t parse, her lips pressed against the fluttering pulse of her neck.

“Good luck Mudblood,” the woman rumbled out, “You’ll need it.”

A chance to ask her for clarification never presented itself; too preoccupied with the background headache she had been experiencing and a sudden shove that had her half falling, half sprawling to the ground, the loss of control making sure of that.

Hermione looked around once it became clear she wasn’t to be maimed or killed; the space surrounding her pale and muted beneath the light of braziers along the walls, drab cream reflecting a soft light back inwards. She twisted, turned, observing the walls on either side each spattered with paintings or mirrors; the actual items hidden beneath a black shroud. There was no furniture, no deviation from the marble floors, all empty save a depression filled with something reflective not fifteen paces in front of her. 

A cough broke out behind her staring form, Hermione twisting immediately at the same moment that she came to her feet, eyes now honed in on the occupants to the room. 

Lucius Malfoy stood tall and sturdy to the right of the door she had been shoved through; his body draped from shoulders to black dress shoes in a charcoal colored suit, the center opened to reveal a bare chest of pale skin framed in the drapery of his blonde hair. Narcissa Malfoy stood at his side in much the same garb; a dress instead of suit, charcoal still the same, and thin enough that Hermione could feel a rise of blood color in her throat and cheeks.

Hermione stepped backwards across the cool tile when the door closed shut, bare feet sliding against a slick of water that had her turning around to face the oddity further in the room. Her eyes narrowed as she observed it, a tentative step forward revealing the sight for what it was.

Water.

A shallow pool of it, to be precise. Ringed all about the depression were a series of repeating runes and glyphs etched directly into the marble itself; the symbols geometric in design yet seeming to shift and swirl the longer that she stared, only to be in the same space when she glanced away and then back again. Clear water filled the center, a plane of unmoving glass disturbed only by several rose petals that lay scattered about the surface in a blocky pattern. The stirrings of fear (true fear, the kind that shook and cracked at her mind in a way that torture so far had failed to yield), bright and cold as it lanced through the center of her chest to latch about her heart, self-preservation stirring the young witch into action.

She stumbled towards the door on slippery feet, heart rate pounding itself high enough to skyrocket through her arteries, limbs crashing forward as she fought to throw herself outside the room-

She nearly made it to the door, nearly stepped up to pass beyond its boundaries, but the strong arms of Lucius closed in on her with such speed that she was left with nothing to do but pinwheel her legs in the open air. She fought and kicked against him as he pulled her backwards before that shallow dish; her voice silent and stolen with a quick spell that left her even further along the edge towards terrified madness.

Soft steps met her ears from behind, the sound of another body approaching where Lucius held her still before the water. Hermione craned her neck, peered out and over his shoulder as much she could, only to see a Tall Man with silvered hair and dark robes trimmed in gold approaching them from the entrance to the room. Words of anger and confusion flowed voicelessly from her throat as He walked around them towards the center of the pool, spectacles of thin glass and black metal pushed tight up against His eyes, and a heavy bound tome of ancient and ragged brown stuffed up beneath His arm.

She stared at Him, pent-up energy, body shaking -  _ anger fear loathing confusion bewilderment  _ \- passing through her thoughts as He opened the book and turned towards where she stood under Lucius’s hold.

“We are here, and seen.” The Man’s voice was gravel on stone, ancient and weathered with a booming quality that rang between Hermione’s ears, “But who will lead Her? Who will Honor Her?”

He spread one hand out, palm up, slowly rotating it until it was pointed in a placated manner towards where she stood.

“I will,” Lucius boomed out from where he stood behind her, the tone and severity of his words reverberating throughout Hermione’s chest. A flick of his hands dissolved the manacles wrapped around Hermione’s wrists, only a half second of freedom passing before she twisted in his bonds, arm flying to-

Well, the plan had been to clock him beneath the chin and sprint through the door.

Instead she was rooted to where she stood, arms falling gently to her side as the whispers of  _ something _ invaded her senses. Warmth wrapped its way up her legs and through her core, a pounding not unlike her pulse kicking up between the empty spaces of her chest.

_ ‘Fuck.’ _

The Man snapped His fingers once she settled into place; the sound a reverberating crack not unlike the sharp tones of an Elve’s  _ Apparition, _ the noise echoing sharply within the small room and traveling back towards the center of the water where He stood. A  _ pulse  _ (or something else like it; some amount of pressure differential, at least), shot from the center where He stood in less than a second, the sensation flowing through Hermione’s limbs with the crackling tingle of having an arm fall asleep.

“And who will lead the Marrow?” The Tall Man spoke again, His words causing Hermione to twitch and fight against the magical bonds that held her rooted in place. Lucius’s hand relented for a moment, the warmth and pressure of his hold upon her shoulder dropping away as she awkwardly spun her torso around to look where He was now looking.

There, leaned back against the door that Hermione had been led in through, stood Bellatrix Black herself. Blood drained from Hermione’s face as she stared; the woman tall and regal beneath a shrouded black dress, the edges trimmed out in silver, her wrists and fingers sporting golden finery. Hermione looked the Witch up and down, the thin fabric of her dress just opaque enough to barely shroud the bone white skin beneath it. Blood that had abandoned her returned with all the pounding fury of her heart, throat swallowing dryly as a ringing took residence in her ears.

Pale skin, bleached bones, the curves and angles of her body revealed to Hermione the longer that she stared; nothing underneath left up to her imagination. Bellatrix’s hair had been drawn backwards and pinned in place with her crooked wand, the end sticking up at a tilted angle and loose curls left free to dangle where they framed her face.

“As Head, I will lead myself.”

The sight of Bellatrix speaking as she walked forward, the visage of her dark silhouette  _ popping _ against the cream of the walls-

Hermione’s stupor shattered in an instant, mouth opening as she attempted again (in vain) to scream or yell her discomfort, displeasure, all the myriad emotions twisting through her gut. Bellatrix noticed her distress, coal-black eyes tracing her as she stood there, pink tongue darting out to swipe across a blood-red lip. The Man snapped His fingers once more, releasing yet another pulse of energy to spread throughout the room.

As the magic faded Lucius pushed her forward by the hold he had atop her shoulder, feet moving no matter how unwilling she was. The Tall Man stepped backwards from the center of the water as Hermione and Bellatrix both approached Him, feet stepping high before drifting beneath the warm water filling the depression. Petals buffeted against her ankles as she stood there rigid once more, the lapping water soothing against the preternatural fear swirling through her mind when Bellatrix stopped beside her. 

“Good luck,” Lucius whispered against the shell of her ear, Hermione’s head twisting as she fought to see him retreat. His steps were quick though, and her body bound up by magic, his form and Narcissa’s soon disappearing from the room with a soft sound that was released when the entrance closed again.

The Tall Man began to speak a hurried whisper with a language full of long consonants and heavy inflection, the pace and rapidity leaving Hermione bewildered and confused as she attempted to understand a single bit of it. Bellatrix moved languidly to stand in front of her, leaving the Man to her left and Hermione’s right. Dark eyes pierced her own, a widened grin stretching further as the harsh words continued by their side, sharp teeth pressing down into her bottom lip until a dribble of red joined the makeup. Seconds turned to minutes, minutes turned to agony, agony to a never ending echo of strange words inside Hermione’s mind. Static built up around them both, the crackling pulse of electricity passing up through her feet to freeze every cell of her body in place-

She couldn’t blink-

She could barely breathe-

A hand shot out from the corner of her vision, the Man reaching over with book nowhere in sight, cold skin grasping around her wrist with the same strength and bite as the manacles that had held her not so long ago. He pulled it, maneuvering her into a position that left her palm outstretched before Bellatrix, his other hand doing the same until they were touching fingertip to fingertip.

In a flash the Man’s hand was moving once again, a knife pulled from beneath His robe and slicing through the length of Hermione’s palm from wrist to middle finger; a soundless scream of rage and pain pulled from beneath her chest as He did so. 

Her hand  _ burned, _ the metal having sliced through muscle to graze the bone beneath it, nerves sending her all the pain of a roaring fire, roiling and churning as  _ something _ stepped in to fill the flesh. Thin slivers and tendrils of smoke rose from beneath the bloodied gash while the Man released her hand to take up Bellatrix’s. With the same speed and motion He cut across her palm, hand held still and knife dropping back into His pocket with a practiced ease and chanting increasing to nearly intolerable levels.

A singular thrum began to wind between them, between the cleared and empty spaces of air; pressure building into thrashing waves that quickened to a maddened tempo with every passing second until Hermione’s chest shook and reverberated with it all. Her mind blanked out, lightheaded and woozy as if she had been drinking, body pulsing and burning along with the heady drip of magic. 

A pounding  _ ‘Thump-Thump-Thump’ _ accompanied the Man’s voice as the chanting came to an end, His hands reaching out to grab their own and press them palm to palm, cut to cut. The sizzling of steaming flesh, sparks white-hot and scattering beneath her vision, the room itself seemed  _ alive  _ as He stepped away and dropped his arms, Hermione now absolutely powerless to remove her hand from Bellatrix’s.

And then it was all over, all done,  _ quit, complete,  _ ** _finished-_ **

Hermione came to with a shuddering gasp and water misting out of her lungs, body soaked through and half submerged from the puddle beneath her. A pounding headache blurred her vision into shifting patterns and swirls of colors; her body hurriedly fighting to keep bile in her stomach, where it belonged. 

Bellatrix stepped forward and crowded herself into Hermione’s sightline, grin stretched and feral with too many teeth, her dark eyes hard and burning as she stared down at Hermione’s shivering form. A second passed before the visual inspection was finished, the Witch kneeling down by Hermione’s side and a hand reaching forward to grasp the injured palm. A pleased intake of breath accompanied Bellatrix’s movements, palm twisted until Hermione could look at it herself.

It was healed. 

_ Completely;  _ no blood remaining anywhere upon her skin.

It was scarred.

_ Totally; _ a silver and gray patch of skin that ran from the heel of her palm to just below the first knuckle of Hermione’s middle finger.

Fear licked across the back of her mind as Hermione felt herself descend into wary disbelief.

Bellatrix leaned in, sitting in the water by Hermione’s side, “Where is the Potter brat hiding.” Bellatrix’s breath skated warmth across the shell of Hermione’s ear as she spoke, a blinding heat spreading up beneath her chest as she felt the skin warm before cooling back down.

“He’ll have left off to regroup when I didn’t show back up,” Hermione’s mouth moved and spoke before she could even realize what was happening, “Savernake Forest, Whiltshire. Or somewhere else I won’t know about, if it’s been long enough.” Hermione’s throat clenched up in panic when she finished revealing that secret, mind reeling at the sudden admission and how easily it had passed her lips. “W-what, how-”

“Shh,” Bellatrix pressed a finger against Hermione’s trembling lips as she shushed her, “All in good time Pet, all in good time.” The woman stood up from where she sat beside Hermione’s side, a finger crooking outwards to the waiting form of Narcissa Malfoy. “Cissy, please be a dear and clean her up, would you? I’ll go inform the Dark Lord. I expect I’ll be back in time for supper but if I’m not, don’t wait up.”

Narcissa’s blue eyes peered down curiously into Hermione’s face, a flush building beneath her skin as she stared back at the Malfoy matriarch.

“Oh, and before I forget it, Pet,” Bellatrix’s fingers wrapped around Hermione’s jaw, fingernails pressed tightly into her skin and darkened eyes peering into her soul, “Don’t try to escape, and don’t try to harm anyone inside the Manor. Understood?”

Once again Hermione’s throat moved against her in betrayal, “Yes.”

“Good!” Bellatrix left her sitting there with a devilish smile, a chill very much like the touch of a Dementor gliding up the aching curve of Hermione’s spine.

\---

Narcissa led her out from the horrid ritual room and into blissfully empty hallways and spaces that echoed their hurried steps. 

Their wanderings left Hermione time to remain locked inside her own mind, thoughts and emotions swirling throughout her head to the tune of an aching hollowness in her chest. The manacles had yet to make a reappearance, no wand remained pointed against her back, Narcissa was walking ahead of her by a pace or two with nothing at all between them.  _ Now _ was the perfect moment for her to attempt an escape, she could move fast enough to overpower-

_ “Ah!” _ Hermione dropped straight down onto her knees with a pained thump and blistering throat, head exploding into lashes of pain while the scars across her palm and arms began to burn and throb in turn. Narcissa (for her part, at least,) seemed unamused and unsurprised by this occurrence, the woman merely looking down at her with some mixture of pity and exhaustion.

The pain fled soon enough, all thoughts banished from Hermione’s mind, body strong enough for her to shakily climb her way back up onto two feet. When she regained her footing and stumbled forwards Narcissa was there to catch her; gentle hands and warm skin holding her within a soft grip. The woman squeezed Hermione’s arm where she held it, feet soon enough pulling her along.

Silence reigned over them as they moved through the twists and turns of the Manor, serene peace blanketing them both until they arrived before a door that was foreign to Hermione.

“... Why- why am I not being returned to the dungeons?” Hermione’s voice was a hoarse croak, small and broken from beneath her chest, her eyes meekly remaining on the floor instead of the Witch. The question itself seemed to startle Narcissa more than the manner and tone in which it had been asked, a quizzical glint sparking in her eye as she turned to her.

A soft finger moved beneath Hermione’s chin, tilting her upwards until their eyes were locked, “A dungeon is appropriate for a prisoner; it is  _ not _ an appropriate dwelling for someone of Black Blood, no matter how new it may be.”

Hermione could only stare in confusion at the woman, lips parted and mind refusing to compute what Narcissa had said.

_ “What.” _


End file.
